Taming a Heart: Legacy of Myth
by Norwesterner
Summary: With all that he has known seemingly at an end, a modern man seeks to find a future in the land of his distant past, where Vikings and dragons are now ancient myth and legend. The third novel in the 'Taming a Heart' trilogy. Fifty-fifth chapter now lit. Still more to come.
1. Chapter 1

_Preface_

_Many of us have immersed ourselves in fantastic worlds of history or mythology through reading or study—be they knights, Vikings, monsters, or dragons. We have even gone to seek out their worlds and remnants through travel and personal encounter. But the whole time, we are basically secure in the knowledge that they are not, or at least are no longer, real on present-day, here-and-now Earth . . . right?_

_At the same time, more and more of us are on a quest to discover our roots—where we each come from, who our ancestors were. We find ourselves wanting to know not just their names or when they lived, but what they cared about, felt and even experienced; even to be taken back to their lives and times, into their thoughts, at least through anything they may have written down or left behind._

_So via ideas and characters conceived of for 'How to Train Your Dragon' by author Cressida Cowell for her original book series, and brought to the screen by the team at DreamWorks Animation, join us as a man, disillusioned by the present, finds himself drawn to seek meaning, and even his identity, in the past._

— _Norwesterner_

* * *

><p>After a daylong train ride across Norway from Oslo airport, having to rent a car on top of that, and even take a ferry, I finally arrived after sunset on the Norwegian coast south of Bergen.<p>

Dog-tired from basically two days of travel by plane, train, automobile, and boat, I reached my objective—the Drager Vertshus or 'Dragons Inn'. It was kind of an eclectic, even kitschy place, themed in dragon and Viking lore, which the area was rich in. After I had received a brochure a while ago in the mail, along with a remarkably personalized letter from the local tourism bureau, signed by the owner of this inn no less . . . well, I felt I just had to start my trip here.

"Check-in," I said upon reaching the front desk in the richly decorated, wood-panelled lobby, seeing no one behind the counter, and trying to get the innkeeper's attention. Even though my ancestry is largely Norwegian, I had never learned the language . . . modern Norwegian, Nynorsk or 'New Norse' as its spoken version is called anyway.

"Ahh, my NASA exobiologist!" the elderly innkeeper greeted me as he emerged around a corner. Clad in a grey cardigan sweater but with a full head of hair, albeit silver, and wearing half-rimmed reading glasses, he was surprisingly tall for the typical Norwegian.

"I'm the only guest from America you're expecting?" I asked, amazed he would have me so thoroughly pegged just from saying 'check-in'.

"The only one who is scheduled to arrive today," he smiled.

"Mister Johannsen, pleased to meet you at last," I greeted him. "I'm still wondering why you asked me what I did for work when I made my reservation."

"Vhat a person verks at tells me a lot more about them than their name does," the old gentleman warmly assured. "But in your case, your name possibly reveals much, too, Doctor Husa. Do you know vhat it means?"

"Excuse me, but you're mispronouncing it," I replied. "It's spelled H-Y-S-E and my family pronounce it 'Hise'. You're pronouncing it 'Husa'."

"I'm sorry," he apologised. "I am merely pronouncing it the vay ve would in Norvegian, my apologies. But I can understand how your name has become modified in English. I had forgotten you pronounced it that vay over the phone vhen you made your reservation."

"That's alright," I replied. "But in answer to your question . . . no, my paternal grandparents never really told me what my name means, although I do have an uncle who's starting to look up my family's genealogy."

"Vell, let me save your uncle some time," Johannsen offered. "It means 'Haddock' in Norvegian . . . a local fish. But vas there more to that? Perhaps a previous version of the name?"

"Well, my grandparents did mention something about my family once going by 'Ýsa' or 'Ésa'," I replied. "But even I could agree that Hyse, the way we pronounce it, sounds better in English. There is a great similarity between the names though, the way you pronounce them anyway, which explains a few things to me now."

"Ýsa," he nodded, smiling slightly. "It means 'Haddock', too . . . but in the old tongue, before Nynorsk. Vell before Nynorsk. But you vere never told anything more about it?"

"No," I replied, wondering what he now knew that I didn't.

"That family name vas once quite important here," he noted. "They ruled this very area, as chieftains . . . in Viking times."

"You're kidding," I responded almost incredulously.

"I thought I might have a special guest in your case," the kindly innkeeper smiled.

"You know more?" I asked with interest, as another party of arriving guests now entered the lobby.

"I might remember a thing or two . . . tomorrow, once you have settled in," he hinted, seeing the other guests looking around for the moment, but obviously wanting to check in as well.

I suddenly felt he knew a whole lot more about my past, if not me as well now, than I did.

"But here is the key for your cabin, Number Eight," he continued. "It has an excellent view of the ocean and is somevhat off by itself, allowing you some peace and quiet. Ve offer breakfast and dinner in our dining room . . . lunch is on your own, but ve'll be happy to provide you with a picnic basket or makings for a lunch at your cabin if you like."

"I look forward to hiking around," I said, " . . . even seeing some historic sites, if that's possible."

"I vill see what I can do to help you with that," he smiled. "I vill just need your passport for a vhile for recordkeeping."

"Of course," I replied, familiar with the European custom among hoteliers of holding passports for a while. "Here," I offered as I pulled it out of my coat pocket.

"Interesting," he noted. "A Canadian passport. I thought verking for NASA and living in America, you vould be American."

"Nope, I just work in America," I replied. "There isn't much call for biologists who can study and theorize on new life forms on other worlds in my country, so I just signed up with the bunch who launches a lot of rockets looking for that kind of thing. They happen to be in America. I have fun with Americans though, needling them on how they mangle words like 'centre' and 'honour' just to prove they're not British. But with the Apollo Moon shots and even Skylab missions at an end now, nothing really showing up on Mars with the initial results from the Viking probe missions, and anything else a ways off . . . my programme is winding down. I'm actually on sabbatical here . . . to figure out what I want to do next with my life."

"By yourself?" Johannsen asked. "No vife? No children?"

"Nope," I replied. "I'm divorced. My wife left me and cut off all contact. No kids either."

"I think ve are a very good place for you then," the innkeeper assured. "Maybe even perfect, dare I say."

"I'm sure I'll have a lot to look at, just around your inn," I said. "Your lobby alone is practically a museum on Viking and dragon lore. You even have a dragon tooth here," I noted, looking at one display case on a wall next to the counter. "Probably a whale tooth though by the looks of it . . . maybe Atlantic Orca."

"It has been passed down to me through generations as a dragon tooth," Johannsen smiled. "But you probably know better than I."

"Think I'll see any around here?" I joked as I looked at the tooth again. "Dragons, I mean."

"There should be a few around on nights like this," my host replied with a smile. "At least that's vhat people say."

"I'll keep an eye out then," I smiled in return. "As a biologist, I should know what I'm looking at, if I see anything."

"I'm sure you vill," Johannsen said. "A selection of coffee, hot chocolate, fruit, and pastries are already in your cabin to velcome you. Is there anything else you might like?"

"A bottle of your finest schnapps might be nice," I mused, " . . . for my nightcaps. That should last me for my week here."

"Most assuredly," the old man said. "I vill be right back vith one from our bar."

I now looked around for a moment at all the drawings, maps, paintings, and artefacts that decorated the lobby. "Another world . . . another time," I mused aloud. This place was just what I was looking for to take my mind off of where I now found myself in life. I could indulge my interests, even fantasies, in a world of history, myth, and incredible scenery.

"Here you are," my host said, returning with a bottle for me.

"Thank you," I said gratefully accepting it from him. "I think I'll turn in now. It's been a long two days in getting here."

"Your cabin is out the door and to the left, down the path through the trees. Sleep vell," my host bid me.

"Goodnight," I said as I went out the door, and collected my two somewhat large suitcases out of my rental car. I was intending to stay in Europe, possibly just Norway, for a while; so I figured I might as well bring enough stuff along, even though I knew I wouldn't really be needing all that much of it.

"Hardly any lights on this path," I commented as I made my way through the trees to my cabin.

I then heard a brief whoosh above me as I walked through the trees. "Wind," I dismissed to myself. "A few minutes here, and you've already got dragons on the brain."

"Wow . . ." I then said, emerging from the woods to find my cabin perched on a bluff at the edge of the forest with some coastal mountains and craggy inlets just beyond. Even at night here, the cabin had a commanding view of the ocean and some rocky cliffs and sea stacks around it. Looking back, I could see the lights of the main inn off to my left back along the bluff, but otherwise I was alone here, the forest providing me with basically complete privacy.

The cabin itself had a wonderful, rounded front patio, partially sheltered by an overhang of the roof. There was a circular outdoor dining table with four chairs, as well as an inviting wooden armchair with large outdoor cushions, which had a nice little side table next to it, along with an ottoman footrest. I unlocked and opened the cabin's front door and turned on the lights. Inside, it was warm, immaculately clean, and inviting as well. I dropped my luggage at the foot of the large, plush king-sized bed, then turning to quickly fumble through the kitchen area for a small glass. Finding one, I then briefly paused at a mirror on the wall. Thin, with short, wavy brown hair and at the average five feet, ten inches in height, I'd never pictured myself as much of a Viking, thinking they were universally blonde and well-built, or at least stocky. But apparently I was . . . well, at least a descendant.

I shrugged and continued back out to that inviting armchair out on the patio with my bottle of schnapps, sitting back and quickly downing a couple of shots, really wanting to relax and begin my sabbatical in earnest. With my divorce, and now my job seeming to be at an end as well, gods know I'd deserved it.

"Gods," I mused to myself out loud. In studying my ancestral Viking history, culture, and lore intensely in my off hours, I got into Viking spiritual views somewhat. It took my mind off the divorce. I liked that they had a choice of gods to pray or think to. If one god didn't answer your prayers, another one might. But I didn't take it all that seriously, and I couldn't escape the feeling that there was a unifying presence around everything, maybe with many aspects. After all, I was trained to look for life on other worlds. Who knows what they'd worship there.

In an increasingly hazy state . . . I don't know whether it was my fatigue, or the schnapps . . . I thought I saw something dark cross in front of the stars on this moonless night.

"It's time to go to bed," I concluded.


	2. Chapter 2

Alright . . . this was the perfect vacation. Even as I turned my head on my pillow under the incredibly soft covers when I began slowly waking up in the morning, I had a stunning view of the ocean and seascape out a large window next to the bed.

I just got up slowly, made myself coffee, and went right back to my plush bed to enjoy it. No rush this first day.

I began to look around my cabin as I sipped my coffee. I'd never really noticed what was inside it the previous night. Even this cabin was a museum of dragon and Viking lore . . . something I could only dream of as I pored over books on this era back home. The replica maps, the copies of ancient documents, even drawings . . . I could be kept busy for days studying them all.

"Certainly something to do when it rains around here," I mused.

Fortunately, I had already learned how to read Viking runic characters somewhat back home through my intensive studies. While the characters themselves weren't all that hard to recognize and distinguish . . . the Old Norse language, and its grammar and syntax, was something else however.

I began to scan the framed document replicas within easy eyesight from the comfort of my bed.

"Wow . . . 'Dragon Manual'," I said reading what looked like a decorated title page from an ancient book. "They really went to that level of detail to document myths," I commented, somewhat amazed.

Then I looked at a framed copy of a map next to it.

"Isle of Berk," I translated. "Hmmm . . . the island has what looks like a significant village on it. The Vikings who made the original of this map must have lived there."

Something drew me out of my plush bed now to take a closer look. My eyes zeroed in on the village of Berk. Some of the individually drawn houses were marked with clan or family names, indicating who lived in which house.

I suddenly experienced a shock.

"Ýsa . . . Hyse . . . Haddock . . ." I progressively translated. "My . . . My ancestors lived there!" I realized. "I truly am home."

I sat back down on the edge of my bed in stunned amazement. A flood of thoughts and sensations, perhaps even recessed ancestral memories, seemed to run through me now. I didn't know what I wanted to do first . . . but something now made me want, even compelled me, to plan on making my way to wherever Berk was.

"Easy, Lance . . . you're on vacation now," I had to remind myself.

I deliberately slowed myself down, going back to bed with a second cup of coffee, along with a nice Danish. But while I tried to relax again, and eat and drink leisurely . . . my mind was racing nonetheless. _You have to get to Berk!_ it said almost incessantly. _You have __got__ to get to Berk!_

"Alright," I sighed, basically giving in to my now seemingly fevered brain. "I'll make an inquiry . . . _after_ an enjoyable shower."

— — — — —

"Do you know where a place called 'Berk' is?" I asked Mr. Johannsen almost immediately upon entering the inn's lobby a short time later.

"I thought you might be interested in that," the innkeeper smiled. "Unfortunately that village site is on an exposed island, further out along the rugged coast here. People haven't lived there in centuries . . . not since the Viking chiefdoms were merged by the Christian kings and their armies into what became Norway. Why live at such an inhospitable place when there are easier places within the same kingdom to live in?"

"Is there any way you could help me get there . . . visit there?" I asked with a degree of urgency.

"Saw the map in your cabin, did you?" Johannsen smiled. "As vell as your family name on one of the houses?"

"Yes, I did," I replied.

"Did you see another name on one of the other houses?" he asked. "A 'Johann'?"

"Why yes, I did," I somehow recalled.

"That vas my ancestor," the elderly gentleman smiled. "Our families vere neighbours there . . . even friends. A journal I have seen even describes my ancestor. He vas a metal smith in the village . . . and tall, like me."

All of a sudden, I had an indescribable feeling of meeting a long-lost friend . . . even a brother of sorts. That we must have been thirty or forty years apart in age no longer mattered.

"Johann . . . sen," I involuntarily said.

I looked away and shook myself a bit. "Sorry," I said, " . . . I don't know what came over me there."

The innkeeper just continued to smile.

"Ve are in touch with our history, every day here," he noted. "You, my friend, are just rediscovering it . . . or perhaps discovering it for the first time.

"Come," he then invited. "Enjoy a late breakfast in our dining room, while I make a call. I have a friend who can take us to Berk."

I teared up a little at those words, but I did not know why.

— — — — —

No sooner had I finished an excellent Scandinavian breakfast, than Mr. Johannsen was driving me in his car to a boat harbour nearby.

"Fortunately Olly was at home to get my call a little vhile ago," Johannsen noted as we drove. "I am looking forward to this as vell, actually. It has been a vhile since my last visit to our ancestral village. Here ve are."

We now drove down a steep, narrow road to a small cove filled with docks and boats. Once the car was parked and we got out, I looked around, taking it all in . . . savouring everything around me. The sea air, the cry of the seagulls, the rocky and tree-filled crags . . . I felt alive here, as never before.

"This vay to the boat," Johannsen smiled as he gestured. "I hope you don't get sea sick," he now cautioned as we began walking along a nearby dock. "It is often not a smooth trip."

"I'm ready for it," I assured.

"Olly!" Johannsen now greeted as we approached a stocky fisherman clad in a thick, white sweater and yellow oilskins alongside one boat. "This is our visitor I told you about, Doctor Lance Hyse," he continued in English for my apparent benefit. "This is Olly Haloffsen," my elderly friend now introduced to me.

"Doctor Husa," Olly said very deferentially . . . as if I were a celebrity or even royalty, but pronouncing it the Norwegian way. I didn't correct him, realizing it was probably my grandparents or great-grandparents who had taken to deliberately mispronouncing it themselves to try and fit in better with society in English Canada over time.

"A pleasure," I replied as I shook his hand, while I gave a curious glance towards Johannsen as to Olly's reaction to me.

"Most people here are aware that your ancestors were once legendary chieftains of Berk," my host explained. "You are indeed a celebrity to anyone here who knows and appreciates our history, as there haven't been any others of your family around here for a long time."

Olly then ushered us both aboard his boat before starting its diesel engine. As he untied and took in the mooring ropes and we backed away from the dock, I once again now found myself misty eyed. This place was pulling strongly at my heart . . . and now I knew why.

— — — — —

Soon, we emerged out of the cove onto the open sea, puttering somewhat noisily along at about fifteen knots or so. I excused myself from my companions and went onto the bow of the fishing boat we were on, seating myself down on the boat's white cabin top.

I felt something miraculous in me now. As the vessel moved along, I began to feel I was almost soaring across the waters. The only thing that was holding me to the present was the infernal noise of the boat's diesel engine, whining loudly as we now went at the full speed it was capable of. I wanted that engine gone. I looked up, and tried to imagine the sail of a Viking ship above me instead . . . and nothing but the waves around us, and the creak of wood timbers for sounds.

"Gods . . . Ancestors . . . speak to me . . . reach and touch me," I quietly prayed, with more intensity than I had ever known. "Connect me with you . . . please."

I felt as if I was on the edge of something now . . . something incredible. For the first time since my divorce, I was glad I was on this quest by myself, even that my ex-wife had left me. Now, I was discovering things that had been waiting for me . . . things that were meant just for me alone.

With no one around me on the bow of that boat, I allowed myself to be overcome for a moment, with wonder and indescribable joy. That I was here, experiencing these things, now seemed like a miracle in itself. I meditated and marvelled as we travelled upon that sea, even a fair distance it seemed away from the coast.

Eventually, thick mists parted to reveal several offshore rocks and barren hillside beyond . . . a place that just felt sacred to me.

"Berk," Johannsen simply said from behind me near the bow. I knew what it was though, even before he had said its name.

But although it had once been a thriving village from what I'd seen on the map in my cabin, and had even somehow sensed about the place . . . there now was almost no sign that anyone had ever lived there. I say almost, because there were large squares and rectangles dug at various places into the hillside, along with a central set of stone steps that went up to a tall, cave-like opening in a rocky mountain.

"Archaeological excavations," Johannsen explained, almost anticipating my question. "The National Museum and Oslo University are exploring the site for artefacts. I am verking to establish at least some claim on things that might be related to my family. I am perfectly villing to have them displayed in a museum, but I vant it known that the things that vere once used by my family, still belong to my family.

"The thing though is they're just not finding much here," he added. "This vas an important village, yet the residents left little behind. They seem to have taken most everything vith them, or came back and reclaimed them. The archaeologists are most puzzled."

He seemed to smile that the archaeologists were confounded.

We now entered a cove.

"According to the map you've seen, this vas the boat harbour for the village," Johannsen explained. "There vere once vooden ramps up to the village, but those have been long gone now. There is a steep path along the cliff face you can see there ve can climb up though."

"You up to that?" I cautioned, now seeing how steep and narrow the path really was, and becoming concerned about Johannsen's advancing age.

"For my ancestors . . . I am up to it," he answered proudly.

The boat slowed as we pulled up alongside a modern wooden float that was secured by steel cables to the face of the cliff. Olly easily looped the boat's lines around cleats on the float while also shutting down the boat's engine. Finally, the peace and gentler sounds of nature were able to surround us.

"Shall ve go?" my host invited with a smile.

Soon, Johannsen and I were climbing up the path hewn along the dark, rocky cliff. Fortunately, there was a hand rope made of more steel cable and secured by pad eyes driven into the cliff face to hold onto, likely placed there by the archaeological teams. I just tried not to look down the further up the path we got. But as we went, I began to feel what I can only describe as presences. I felt I was passing among them, almost hearing bits of their conversations echoing in my mind.

"You feel them?" Johannsen asked as he carefully climbed ahead of me.

"Yes . . ." I said, amazed. "You feel and hear them, too?"

"They are our families and our friends across time," he replied. "Only those of us who have had family here can sense them. This, and they, are meant for us . . . and for us alone. That is vhy Olly is staying vith the boat. He does not vant to disturb us as ve connect vith our ancestors."

We now emerged onto sloping, grassy hillside that was laced with terraces, and those rectangular holes.

"The heart of the village vas here," Johannsen noted as we both looked around us. "Listen . . . feel . . . quietly for a moment," he encouraged. "Let them reach you . . ."

I closed my eyes, sensing and even hearing voices more intensely now . . . feeling energies and presences around me. Something was really weird however, but it felt wonderful.

"Not all of them are human," I sensed out loud. "Sorry . . . I don't know why I just said that."

The old man smiled. "As you say in North America, 'Go vith it.' But come," he then said, "I will show you vhere your family's house vas." We climbed further up the hill now.

"Here," he said pointing to one long rectangle dug into the earth that was off by itself near the stone stairs and a rocky cliff face. "This vas your family's home . . . vhere they lived. Go, step inside," he encouraged. "Feel it fully."

I stepped into the rectangular hole. Tears now uncontrollably streamed down my face. I was home. I felt . . . love. It came from all directions. It was everywhere, reaching to me across time it was so powerful. I could almost see a warm cooking fire, and almost hear laughter and warm words in a language I couldn't quite understand, and yet didn't have to. I prayed, I meditated. I just let it in.

And then, I began to feel sadness, and loss. I suddenly experienced an unending, gaping emptiness . . . of things being burned and swept away.

Finally, I found myself now returned to the present, and standing in the empty hole that had once supported my family's house. I wept uncontrollably now for the loss that I now keenly felt. I found myself silently swearing that somehow, the good that I had just felt here would not die . . . that it would carry on, somehow, within me. I would devote myself to doing whatever I would have to so that this good, this love I had just experienced, would live.

"Vhat have you felt?" my host and guide now asked.

"I can't describe it," I said, looking up at him with a tear-stained face now.

"Don't try to," he advised. "Your answer is already on your face."

"Will I be able to see this place . . . to be here, again?" I asked.

"Yes," he simply said as he helped me step up out of the hole. "But come, let me show you vhat vas the Mead Hall, and then let's go to my family's house."

"There are no houses," I noted as we climbed the nearby steps that still existed up to the Mead Hall. "But yet you speak like the houses are still here."

"They are here," he replied as we climbed the last step. "You felt your family's house, didn't you?"

"Yes, I did," I admitted with a smile.

"That is vhy this village . . . this place . . . still belongs to us, to our families," he said as we entered and briefly explored the large cavern that had been the Mead Hall. "It belongs to us far more than it does to any outsiders, or to any archaeologists or museums."

"But aren't I an outsider?" I asked. "After all, I come from Canada."

"No," my elderly friend said as we emerged from the stone hall again and looked out upon the village. "You come from here."

— — — — —

We soon walked down the hill and visited the Johannsen or Johann's home.

"Vitness me, as I enter my family's home," he invited as he now stepped into another rectangle, one among several in a row along the hillside.

He closed his eyes once he had stepped inside. Soon, tears were streaming down his face, just as they had on mine.

A few moments later, he walked to the edge of the hole and quietly reached for my hand. I helped him up.

"You are the only other person I have seen react the vay I have vhen I have stepped into a home here," he told me. "Everyone else just thinks of these as holes—not homes, vhere families once lived . . . vhere their hopes, joys, sadnesses, and love echoed, and echo still. Vell, actually," he then added, " . . . that is not completely true. But please, do not ask me to explain it now."

"I won't," I assured respectfully.

"But sadly, it is getting late . . . and a storm is coming from the north," he now noted with regret. "Ve must go."

"Let me go ahead of you, down the trail," I offered as we turned to leave the village.

"Thank you," Johannsen accepted as I started to climb down ahead of him.

"It's a shame there isn't an easier way up and down this bluff," I noted to him as we descended carefully, clutching the hand ropes.

"There should not be," he simply replied behind me, almost seeming to deliberately leave something else out.

We made it back down to the float where Olly was still waiting with the boat. Fortunately, its engine had been off while we were up in the village, but now with a guttural roar, it seemed to jerk us back to the present again.

It now started to rain around us as we began leaving Berk's stony cove. I sat outside the boat's covered area on its transom or stern though, looking back at the village as we left it. Johannsen silently passed me a yellow rain slicker and hat. I put them on. I then just watched as Berk disappeared again into the rain and fog behind us.

America, even Canada, weren't home to me anymore. Somehow, this was.

And now, I never wanted to leave home again.


	3. Chapter 3

A rainy while later, Johannsen and I arrived back at the boat harbour from Berk, and we were then soon back at the inn.

"You remember the journal I mentioned?" my innkeeper friend now brought up as we re-entered the inn's lobby together.

"Why yes," I recalled. "What about it?"

"I think you might vant to read it," Johannsen now suggested subtly, now seemingly ready to drop something important. "Because it vas vitten by your ancestor . . . Chief Hiccup Haddock."

My jaw hit the floor.

Johannsen just knowingly smiled.

"It is in the Old Norse though," he cautioned. "It has been transcribed and copied, but never translated into any modern language."

"I can read it," I assured. "Studying Viking history and language has been an active hobby of mine lately. It's part of what drew me here."

"I think you vill enjoy it," he noted as we arrived at his counter. "It is vitten in a surprisingly conversational style for the time. Come into my office and allow me to get it."

"Certainly," I agreed, as he now ushered me behind the lobby counter and into his office, before shutting the door. Johannsen's wood-paneled office was small, but fairly tidy and organized. He pulled a book off the shelf.

"Here it is," he said, offering my ancestor's journal to me. I looked at the book as I now held it, even turning it in my hands. Its seemingly primitive, uneven pages of parchment were encased in a hand-sewn leather book jacket. The jacket though was curiously without title or even a symbol, which seemed to give the fairly thick volume an air of mystery. "But could I say something?" he added.

"What?" I wondered, looking up at him again.

"You have seemed like the right sort to me, ever since you got here," he assessed as he looked at me now, even into my eyes. "And after our trip today, I think you are ready for this. But there are things . . . a vay of life . . . described in rich detail inside this journal," he then said seriously. "Things that the vorld has dismissed, and that you may find hard to believe. For our ancestors, their myth and their reality merged. For them, myth had solid form. Even though my own ancestors merit just a small mention in this journal, it is very personal to me. This has not been seen by scholars or serious historians . . . and I, as my predecessors have before me, do not vish it to be seen by just anyone. It describes a time, and a vorld, that vere swept avay, even discredited by invaders. One that I, even almost a thousand years later, still lament the loss of at the place you saw today.

"I ask you, for the sake of your ancestor—for Hiccup and all he cared about," the elderly man continued, "to keep vhat you read here to yourself. I vould be glad to discuss its contents vith you during your stay, but most people vill think you are mad if you tell them about vhat you read here, especially a scientist in your position. The level of detail in here makes things . . . incredible things . . . seem real. But now that you have seen our ancestral village, and hopefully even sensed vhat vas once there—I feel I owe it to your ancestor, and to you, to let you read vhat is in this book. Vould you honour my request though, please?"

"I will," I replied appreciating his seriousness, and his trust in me. "I swear it," I said, as I reached in my thoughts for something, or someone, sufficiently important or even sacred to me to swear an oath on . . . not me, not my mother, definitely not my ex-wife.

Then, I had it. "I swear it, upon my ancestor's heart," I concluded.

The elderly man now nodded, smiling at me, as he finally passed me his treasured book.

"I know you cannot vait to begin," he said. "So I will deliver your dinner to you shortly here. Vould you like meat cakes, or lamb and cabbage stew this evening?"

"I'll go for the meat cakes," I decided. "And you're right. I can't wait to get started."

With the rain falling even harder around me and sheltering the book inside my jacket, I soon made it back to my cabin, and poured myself a nice shot of schnapps. I settled onto my richly quilted bed, and opened the book. But even before I could begin deciphering the first word, there was a knock at my door.

"Your dinner, my friend," Johannsen offered, passing me a covered stainless steel container. "Everything is in here . . . the meat cakes, vegetables, even dessert. A selection of soft drinks, juices, and beers are already in your refrigerator. The radio says this storm will last into tomorrow, perfect for reading the journal," he added. "Enjoy."

"Thank you so much," I gratefully replied as I accepted the container from him.

"You're very velcome," he gladly replied as he turned back into the rain in his slicker.

"Goodnight," I added behind him as I closed my cabin's door.

For some reason, although I had skipped lunch because of the boat trip to Berk, I wasn't hungry right now. I wanted to get into that journal. I did reach for a bottle of juice though, and cracked it open as I settled back onto the bed. I then also speared a meat cake with a fork, as I once again opened the book on my lap while thunder echoed outside my cabin and the sounds of rain pouring down now intensified.

While the individual runic characters were now familiar to me, reading them as words and sentences went slowly. I wasn't in a rush though. I just began to enjoy the experience of meeting a real Viking, my ancestor, and reading what he had to say across the span of almost a thousand years.

The writer began mostly describing Berk, and not in very flattering terms. But Johannsen was right. While many chroniclers of the age wrote in very formal, lofty, and even stilted or awkward ways; even though it was in Old Norse, Hiccup was writing as if the reader was sitting right in front of him, just talking to me as if I was already a trusted friend.

Then, when he started describing the 'pests' his village suffered from, I did a double take.

"_While other villages have mice or mosquitoes,"_ Hiccup wrote in his colloquial Old Norse, _"we have . . . dragons!"_

I was suddenly plunged into a battle with creatures that couldn't be real, and yet were undeniably so, even through his words . . . especially through his words.

He was taking it all in stride though, like it was perfectly normal! My mind was suddenly bent . . . just bent! The scientist in me was just dumbfounded. The descriptions of each type, each breed, of dragon were as clear as any biologist could ask for, even in Old Norse runes. I wanted to re-read the initial section again, but I couldn't stop. I had to continue.

I lost all track of time as I read on through the night. The call of nature forced me to pause and go to the bathroom at times, but those were the only times I stopped. I also put those pauses to good use reheating my dinner in the microwave, and bringing to my bedside anything else I might need.

A grey dawn came. The rain continued unabated. But I couldn't stop reading the journal.

I came to first admire and then love Toothless, just as Hiccup did. And Astrid . . . why the hell did Hiccup get so lucky in finding a girl, and a love, like that and I hadn't, yet? I wound up being so mad at my life, and so envious of his.

But at the same time, I realized these were my distant predecessors, even my parents of long ago. Yet I was reading about them, almost experiencing them and their lives as a peer, even as a friend. While Hiccup was somewhat discreet, he held little back. I felt almost embarrassed at times as he allowed me to glimpse some of his ups and downs, even some of his passions with his love and wife, Astrid.

They and their family were alive in these pages. Hiccup was speaking directly to me. I didn't know why, but I found myself grateful that he was. He couldn't have known who would be reading his words here, but yet he did.

By late afternoon of that day, I had run out of Danishes and fruit. I still had a couple beers left, and one juice . . . but I was still reading. Old Norse now seemed like a familiar language to me, one that I could probably converse in if I tried; although not having heard it spoken really at all, I would probably mangle the pronunciations of the words, and thoroughly confuse most any native speaker of it I might try and communicate with. But I read on anyway.

By nightfall again, I was physically and emotionally spent. I struggled to read as Hiccup faced a terrible choice between he and his people having to abandon both who they were, and their dragons, or facing war at the hands of Christian missionaries and the armies behind them who were supposedly there to 'save' Hiccup and his village, but who in reality were bent on conquering and assimilating them, and eliminating the supposedly 'demonic' influence of their Viking ways and the dragons at any cost.

"Sleep . . . rest," I heard in my mind. "We'll be okay . . ."

The book fell against me as my eyes closed of their own accord.

— — — — —

I awoke late the next morning.

I slowly revived with a cup of coffee in bed as I looked out the window, savouring the view. After a day and a half, the storm had passed and the sky had cleared. Both the ocean and sky were now brilliant shades of blue. The world seemed fresh, and good.

But then I looked down at the book that lay beside me on the bed, face down, still opened to the pages where I had drifted off to sleep reading. The world there, at least at the point where I stopped, was anything but good.

I was about to pick up the book again when I heard a knock at my door. I could see through the large window next to the door that it was my friend.

"Good morning, Johannsen," I greeted as I soon opened the door.

"Good day," my host replied. "I thought I'd leave you be yesterday, but I vanted to check on you this morning though, as you definitely don't have much food left in your cabin by now."

"How did you know?" I smiled.

"I've read the journal, too," he replied with a knowing smile, "more than once. Vhere are you in it? Have you finished?"

"I'm at the point where Hiccup and his people have to decide whether to give up their beliefs and their dragons, or give up their lives. I was just waking up and about to start reading again."

"That is a good place to pause, actually," he said. "Come, have a good brunch. You must be starved. Just put the book avay in your vardrobe and let us allow my housekeeper to service your cabin."

"Allow me to shower and dress," I requested, feeling and probably looking quite dishevelled in an old t-shirt, "and I'll be right over."

— — — — —

A short time later, I was in the inn's dining room, dressed in comfortable jeans, a shirt and thick sweater, catching up on lost meals.

"Vhat do you plan to do today?" my host asked as he walked up to me while I was eating.

"Probably get back to reading the journal," I thought as I finished a mouthful.

"I vould suggest you perhaps take a break from that," Johannsen suggested. "It is the first really beautiful day ve have had here in a vhile. Vhy not valk along our beach here, meditate, pray . . . let soak in vhat you have read?"

"Alright," I accepted. "Have any suggestions as to which way I should go? Or anything I should avoid, places I could get trapped by the tide and the like?"

"Come by the front desk after you have eaten," my host offered. "I vill give you a local map . . . and maybe more," he gently smiled as he turned and left.

While I was somewhat intrigued by what he meant by that last statement, I decided to relax and enjoy the view from my window-side table over another cup of coffee. I was on sabbatical I had to remind myself.

I looked at my watch, a simple gold face attached by brown leather straps. It was noon. Even though the days in springtime were getting longer here, this day was already half over. If I was going to see the beach, I had better get to it!

I backed my chair away from the table and got up. Even in the dining room, there was more history and lore to look at on the walls. I could spend hours here, too. But a sunny afternoon on the beach sounded just too good.

I walked out to the lobby, and found Johannsen talking to what struck me as a female hippie in her late twenties or early thirties. She was dressed a leather vest with what looked like a blue sleeveless tunic underneath, and a long ivory tooth on a leather strap around her neck, complete with two, no three, long, blonde braids . . . one down her back and the other two draped over her shoulders. A wide, studded leather belt, more befitting a medieval warrior than a hippie, was around her tunic. Her strange outfit was completed by a somewhat ragged leather skirt, leggings made of a primitive fabric that looked less than smooth and comfortable, and deep blue fir-lined leather boots that looked surprisingly modern and even upscale compared to the rest of her. The guards made of fabric wrap that she was wearing on her forearms I couldn't figure out though.

_A hippie alright,_ I concluded silently to myself. The woman herself was attractive, even very beautiful . . . but not my type. When I was pursuing my biology major in the Sixties, I didn't have time for, nor interest in, the counterculture movement. I actually wound up finding myself on the opposite side of some of their protests, more because I disliked their disruptive, 'in-your-face' tactics than anything else. While many of them had claimed to be getting back to nature, I was busy actually studying it. Plus, with my divorce still stinging me some, I was more than a little gun-shy towards the opposite sex right now. So I was really in no mood to strike up a conversation with her. I just wanted the map I was promised, and to then be on my way.

"Excuse me, Mister Johannsen," I tried to politely interrupt, "I'm just looking for the map you mentioned. I'm looking forward to getting out there now, with the day half over here."

"Ah, Lance," the innkeeper greeted me . . . a little too eagerly.

I began to have an uncomfortable feeling all of a sudden.

"I have more than just a map for you, if you're interested," he continued.

Oh no . . . I was being set up.

"Allow me to introduce my niece, Roana," he said pleasantly. "She is here visiting today."

_No! No! No! _I silently protested inside, while feigning an awkward smile towards him. I avoided looking at her though.

"She is thoroughly familiar vith the beaches here, and vould be happy to act as your guide," he offered. "She's also trained in veterinary medicine. You two might have a lot to talk about."

At least that perhaps explained the forearm guards.

"Sorry, thanks, but no thanks," I nervously but clearly declined facing just him. "Still freshly divorced. Never mind the map. I think I'll have a hard time getting lost on a beach. Nice to make your acquaintance, miss," I hastily said as I acknowledged her in passing without shaking her hand or even making eye contact with her. "But I should be going. Thank you both."

While I felt bad just leaving my kind host like that, I just was not ready to be paired up for the afternoon, especially with his hippie/vet niece!

Once outside though, I couldn't even find the trail from the inn to the beach. I must have looked like an idiot to Johannsen and his niece as I wandered back and forth through the inn's parking lot and among some of its cabins, looking for a path, any path, that went down the bluff.

Finally, I found it, and made a steep hike down to a narrow stretch of beach. Once I was down on the sand, I finally was able to start relaxing again. But suddenly, I started getting teary-eyed, almost crying. Damn divorce! Even though it had occurred months ago now, why did I have to be reminded of that again? I was here to forget all of that, to move on.

"To go north or south along the beach?" I now wondered aloud, trying to refocus myself. To the south seemed like a broader and flatter beach . . . more people likely though. I just wasn't in the mood for any company right now however. So I decided to head north, along a narrower, craggier beach that was hemmed in by some tall grey cliffs.

At first as I walked along, I kicked the rocks under my leather hiking shoes with some frustration. Then I started picking up and hurling them out into the sea. I wasn't trying to skip the rocks . . . just throw them, harder and harder. Maybe I was trying to hit my past across the ocean there, maybe even hit her, my ex-wife, for what she'd done to me, to my heart. I had never thrown stones so hard and violently in my life. I cried openly now as I threw them. I never wanted to hurt like this again.

I threw rocks until my left arm got tired, and until I was tired of crying. Damn my ex-wife! Even damn this hippie woman today for bringing all this up inside me all of a sudden! I'd have to explain this to Johannsen, at least some of it . . . but later. Maybe I wouldn't even make it back in time for dinner tonight. I'd I just didn't feel like talking or explaining things to anyone right now. I decided I was going to walk a ways, a long ways, up this beach this afternoon. Unfortunately I didn't pay attention to the high tide marks. I just was too angry to.

By late afternoon, my legs were now even more tired from walking than my right arm had been from throwing. I now looked back and smiled . . . with thorough chagrin and irritation.

I had been cut off by the rising tide.

At least I was at a recess or nook among the tree-lined cliffs where there was a dry sand beach above the high tide line. I was going to be here for a while now though.

Well, I had gotten my wish. I wouldn't be back at the inn for dinner this evening. I hadn't even studied the local tide tables. I had no idea when low tide would return—whether it was semi-diurnal, meaning twice daily, or just diurnal, occurring once a day. I now had a whole 'nother reason to kick myself and be angry at the world though. Since I was totally alone, what the heck . . .

"AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHHH!" I screamed at nothing in particular, but everything actually.

Scream therapy, I thought. Why not? So I screamed again . . . and again. My yells reverberated and echoed off the cliffs and nearby sea stacks. I let it all out until I had exhausted myself and made my throat thoroughly sore.

Then, I realized something else. Great . . . I hadn't brought any food or drink with me! And I wasn't even wearing any outerwear more than a sweater! Plus no matches, or even a flashlight! Swell! Perfect! I was such an idiot! All because of a pretty woman, and trying to avoid her.

I was angry enough to want to break rocks with my fists, to even slam the cliffs themselves. But I wasn't quite that stupid. I took to pacing my shrunken section of beach like a caged tiger now for a while. At least the tide seemed to have ceased rising. But with the sun starting to set, I figured I might as well sit and enjoy it and then rest, hoping to be awake again whenever low tide returned.

What an afternoon this had turned out to be. Damn that woman! I sincerely hoped I would never see her again. Otherwise I might not be able to resist giving her a piece of my mind for screwing up my day, my supposed restful vacation, like this!

I sat down on the sand, and then slammed by body and head back against the sand in another bout of frustration. At least that didn't hurt. But I was just finding no peace. So I sat up again and tried to enjoy the sunset. Once that 'show' was over across the thankfully placid ocean and clear sky, somehow my eyes closed. At last, I was able to rest.

— — — — —

"Doctor Hyse . . . hello-oo . . ." I heard in my sleep. At least my name was being pronounced to my liking.

"I'm not interested in any . . ." I mumbled though, dreaming I was in a restaurant. I was even dreaming I was I a foul mood!

"I think you are dreaming," the waitress said. "You are alone on the beach," as she flashed a blinding flashlight across my eyes in the dining room. "I have just found you."

I suddenly sat bolt upright in shock. "Whoa!" I exclaimed.

"Easy, Doctor Hyse," the stranger holding the flashlight on me assured. "Everything is alright. Are you okay?"

While part of me was a little curious at this pleasant female voice that spoke clear, almost North American English with a mild Norwegian accent, I wasn't interested in a rescue however, and was annoyed that anyone had found me.

"Who are you?" I now demanded with some irritation.

"The 'date' you rejected this afternoon," the voice seemed to smile in reply.

I just slammed my back and head down on the sand again, and rubbed my face with my sand-covered palms as I sighed in frustration. Just the one person I did _not_ want to see right now, or be found by!

"I'm sorry," I said, not concealing my renewed frustration, "but I don't need rescuing. I was just waiting for the next low tide. I'm fully aware I'm stuck here. I'm sorry if I concerned anyone, especially your uncle, with my prolonged absence. But, as even you've just said, I'm fine . . . and I'm content to wait by myself for the next low tide, alright?"

"Would you like any food or drink?" she offered. "I brought some."

"Are you now stuck here, too?" I pointedly asked instead.

"No," she calmly replied, still pointing the flashlight at me, "I am not."

"How did you get here then? By boat?" I followed up.

"No," she responded, with a degree of hesitation now. "I uhh . . . how do you say? Ah yes, I 'free climbed' down here."

"_Free climbed?_" I responded somewhat incredulously. "I didn't see any hand or foot holds in the cliffs here."

"You do not know these cliffs like I do," she responded, still with that annoying calmness, and even gentle smile in her voice. "But you cannot come back that way with me. It is too dangerous in the dark here. I will sit for a while with you though, until the tide is low enough for you to return the way you came. Would you like a coat, even a fire?"

"Really, no," I grimaced in continued irritation. "As I said, I was fine the way I was."

"You would just like me to go then?" she asked.

"Yes," I simply replied.

"Very well, as you wish," she sighed, finally pointing the flashlight away from me.

"But please don't hurt yourself on those cliffs," I added, "especially on my account. And I'd prefer you didn't tell your uncle about this either. I'll do it . . . in my own way."

"Funny," she noted as she paused while starting to walk away from me now, "my uncle had said you were so open, so curious . . . and so friendly."

"He is a very likeable man," I replied.

"Yes he is," she agreed. "You are not gay though, homosexual . . . are you?"

"Heck no!" I replied. "Sorry if I gave you that idea."

"She must have hurt you then . . . very deeply," the woman said.

Suddenly, it was all I could do not to break down and cry again.

"Ohh yes," my voice quivered. I buried my mouth and nose in my sweater-covered arm as I sniffed. I didn't want to say a thing more as I just looked blankly at the dark sand and water in front of me.

"Would you like to talk about it?" she offered, turning around with her flashlight. "I have dealt with wounds . . . of many kinds."

Now I buried my whole face in my arms as they were braced across my knees. I didn't know what to do. I just sat silently that way for a moment.

"It is alright," she assured as she returned, and now sat down beside me.

"No . . . it's not," I sadly replied. "But I'm not ready to talk about it, okay? Look, I'm sorry you felt you had to come looking for me, and even risk your neck the way you did."

"I am not sorry," she calmly replied.

I cried at that now. She, and her steadfast kindness and understanding towards me, had just opened up a wellspring of sadness, even repressed anguish within me. Feelings that I didn't even know were there.

I managed to regain enough control of myself however to tell her, "Just go, okay? Tell your uncle I'll be fine, and I'll be back at the inn sometime in the morning, whenever the tide's low again around here. I . . . I'm sorry . . ."

"Alright," she gently accepted. But as she got up, she gently ran her hand from the top of my head, down the side of my face, and even down my neck. Ohh it was such a sweet caress. I began crying all over again.

"Take care," she said softly, as she compliantly got up and left me now. "You will get another chance."

I didn't quite know what she meant by that, but yet I kind of did. Half of me no longer wanted her to go. But I was too sad, too embarrassed at how I was, as well as too stubborn, to ask her to stop now. I knew she would have if I had asked though.

I just let her disappear around the corner of a cliff.

Soon, I heard some noises in the distance beyond the turn of the cliffs . . . whooshing sounds of some kind. Then I sensed something passing across the moonless night sky near me. After that, there was just the gentle wash of the ocean against the shore.

I was able to regain control of myself now, to once again close my heart and all the hideous pain within. I lay back down on the sand and soon fell asleep, emotionally exhausted, finding a measure of peace again.

— — — — —

I woke up to a second sunny morning . . . still on the beach, and to a sea level that was now thankfully much lower.

Normally, I could have done with a cup of coffee right then . . . but I didn't have any. And true to form over the past twenty-four hours, I had probably rejected that, too, when I sent away the angel that had come to find and comfort me during the night. Another perfect screw-up. I was batting a thousand in baseball terms . . . one hundred percent on that score right now.

So I stretched, got up, shook myself to both wake myself up as well as get the sand off me, and then I began trudging back south along the narrow beach at the base of the cliffs back towards the inn. As soon as I got back, it would be an obligatory but quick apology to Johannsen, one big meal, and then I planned on locking myself in my cabin, drawing the curtains closed, and sleeping in better comfort for the rest of the day and night. The seascape here, which had seemed to me to be so stunningly beautiful yesterday, now felt as ugly and dark as hell to me . . . except with all that fire, I never imagined hell to be all that dark. Besides I think they had a town by that name here in Norway.

"Can't even get my concept of hell right this morning," I sighed to myself as I walked.

I climbed back up the trail to the inn, where my whole odyssey had started yesterday. I wasn't looking forward to talking to Mr. Johannsen, or anyone else . . . although part of me was now ready to make an exception for his niece. I couldn't even remember her name though.

I took a deep breath as I opened the front door to the inn's lobby. I no longer paid any attention to the Viking and dragon paraphernalia inside I had once been so fascinated by. Thankfully, Johannsen wasn't at his counter just then. So I just continued into the dining room, figuring he would have left something out for me, or perhaps another late-coming guest.

And there it was . . . a full brunch buffet, any breakfast I wanted, all in heated pans along a serving table. Johannsen was far too kind a man. I felt I didn't deserve his consideration, or that angel of a woman who had found and attempted to offer me the first real kindness basically anyone had in the months since my divorce. I was almost ready to cry yet again as I reached for a warm plate, and attempted to spoon some scrambled eggs and sectioned fruit onto it. Then came a few sausage links, and I decided to go for some French Toast as well. Better skip the coffee now though, I thought. I'll just make it juice instead. I wanted to sleep again soon here.

I sighed as I sat down with my plate and juice at my now favourite window-side table in the dining room, and began to eat. Soon, a figure silently approached me, and sat down across from me.

"How are you doing?" Johannsen gently asked.

"Not good," I sighed. "But I made it back. I'll rest now, and maybe try and have a better day tomorrow."

"I am sorry, my friend," he said. "I had no idea how deep your pain vas. I thought you'd velcome some nice company . . . not run from it."

"I'm sorry, too," I noted, before adding, "but please pass my apologies, and thanks, along to your niece as well. I wasn't as nice as I should have been towards her . . . especially considering what she did to find me where I was last night."

"I'm afraid I can't do that right now," Johannsen sighed. "She is gone, and von't be back for a little vhile, several days at least. She visits as she is able to, but othervise I can't reach her. I don't quite know vhen she vill be back though."

"If I'd known that . . ." I sighed.

"It is alright," my host assured, putting a hand on my arm. "She vould like to see you again. I know it."

"Why?" I asked. "Especially after the way I had treated her . . . mostly."

"Vhen she stopped by during the night to let me know you vere okay," he replied, "she vas crying a little. But they were not tears for herself, my friend," he said as he got up. "They vere tears for you."

That made me stop and look down for a moment. Wow . . . she was crying for me?

I now smiled at him a little with a tear in my eye as he looked at me.

He just nodded. "You vill be alright now I think," he then assured. "Just do not say no to her the next time."

"I don't think I will," I honestly responded.

"Oh, and she asked me to reclaim the journal for now, so I've already picked it up from your cabin," he added. "She vants to share the next part of it with you herself."

"She knows about the journal?" I asked.

"But of course," he assured. "She is a Johannsen . . . a descendant of Johann and Ruffnut, just as I am."

"Please extend my stay until she returns," I now found myself saying. "I had some vague plans for other parts of Norway and Scandinavia, but I think I will just cancel them now. I don't think I can do better than I can right here."

"I do not think so either," he agreed with a smile. "Rest vell, Lance. Ve vill see you tomorrow."


	4. Chapter 4

_Author's Note_

_Main character descriptions in Chapter 1 have been enhanced thanks to a review by Silentwriter._

_As always, your reviews make a difference._

— _Norwesterner_

* * *

><p>Despite being truly comfortable and warm back in my cabin and its thickly-quilted bed at last, I fitfully slept and woke at times over the rest of the day and night.<p>

I became haunted by her . . . the woman whose name I couldn't even remember. I wound up replaying the encounters I had with her in the inn's lobby, and later on the beach, over and over again in my mind; so wishing I could have done things differently now. She became more and more desirable to me with each repetition of my memories of her.

But why was I thinking of her? Starting to even daydream about her now? I still didn't think I could trust anyone else yet, or that I could give them the wounded self inside that I still was. I drove myself mad with such circular thinking. Even several heavy shots of schnapps didn't help. I wasn't much good at meditating, there was no TV to watch, and not even any journal to read now. This was hell . . . at least my current version of it.

Finally, I remembered that I had a gallery around me, a veritable museum of replica Viking maps, manuscripts and illustrations on the walls of my cabin that I had yet to really study. That's how zoned out and distracted I had become.

I had already studied the map of Berk, so after looking at it again for a short while, I moved on. The framed Dragon Manual title page didn't offer much beside the name of the book it had come from, along with illuminations around and through the words of a few sample dragon species. Not much to go by there. There were a few paintings of classic Viking battles and raids, and then one small print of someone riding a dragon . . . seemingly almost right out of what I'd been reading in the journal. It was a somewhat simply-painted figure on a white background. The horizontally-oriented portrait wasn't much more than twenty centimetres across, including its brown wooden frame. I looked at the print more closely, as if something was familiar somehow.

Wait a minute . . . I realized with almost a shock. The leather vest, those long braids, that tooth around the neck! I was looking at her! She was riding a dragon—what looked from the journal descriptions to be what was known as a Monstrous Nightmare.

Okay, this was getting weird. Either this woman I had met yesterday was a ghost, or reincarnated, or she was _really_ hooked on this whole Viking and Dragon thing, right down to wearing the ancient costumes as her everyday garb! That just seemed a little too twisted to my rational mind. I had heard about these Renaissance Faires that had started in California when I went to college there, where people would dress up and play at living Medieval for a day or weekend. That was just not my thing however.

All of a sudden, I was beginning to turn off about her again.

"Get it . . . get her . . . out of your head!" I coached myself. Fully half of me didn't want to though as I remembered the kindness, her soothing voice, and that caress of hers. That side of me now began rebelling. I was right back in hell again.

Then I noticed a small envelope on the nightstand next to my bed. I had not seen it there before. All it had on it was one word—my name, Lance—written simply.

Maybe it was some encouragement from Johannsen, I thought.

I picked up the envelope as I now sat back on my bed and tried to relax again. At least it was something new to read, and I knew that no matter what it was, it would very likely be at least somewhat uplifting to me.

I opened the envelope and found a folded letter inside. I opened it and began reading . . .

_Lance,_

_I hope you are feeling better as you read this. Just so you know, this is your date writing. I would like to reintroduce myself to you, for us to meet again for the first time, on better terms. So allow me to not give you my name right now._

A gentle smile came to my face. I was cared about. As bad and rude and upset as I was to her . . . she still cared about me. She was even playing, trying to intrigue me a little by withholding her name.

I read on . . .

_I cannot spend long here, as my ride is waiting outside. But know that it was difficult for me to leave you on the beach tonight as you were. I did not want to. But I did not want to cause you further pain either._

"Wow," I paused. "You are so nice," I said to the letter, wishing my words could reach her. I re-read that paragraph again, so regretting I had sent her away now. Then I went on . . .

_My uncle has told me about your deep interest in the past here, and about your trip to Berk; how much it moved you to reconnect with your ancestors. It is a past that that I care deeply about, one that I am even working to protect._

Ah, I thought . . . she must be an archaeologist or historian. Okay, I can begin to forgive her over the garb and similarity to her ancestor. She's not just playing at this—she's likely seriously trying to understand them. But wait, so how does the 'vet' training fit in? Maybe it's her day or second job right now. Maybe history just doesn't pay all that well for her. Plus, she needs rides. I guess she must be hard up. Either that, or does she already have a guy friend? Hopefully, he's just a friend. Maybe an ex she's on decent terms with, unlike me.

I resumed reading . . .

_It is something I would like to share with you, if you would allow me to._

_To set the stage for our next "first" meeting— and I hope you will stay at the inn longer until_ _I can come back, hopefully in a few days— please think about this for me. I can understand that pain needs to be dealt with and healed, just like any injury, which I have worked with myself with animals. But dwelling on pain, or holding onto it and pushing others away, it will only keep you lonely. I will not._

_To be honest, you may ask why I do this? Why I am interested in becoming friends with you? I cannot explain it now, maybe not even to myself. All I know is, I would like to._

_I wish you peace, and hope you can rest and relax as_ _you read this, or even re-read this. Take care, alright?_

_Until we meet,_

_Your Date_

Okay, I was gonna give this woman a break now, and definitely an apology.

I shook my head as I smiled again and found a small tear in my eye. This was definitely the best letter I had received from a date, ever. It was just what I needed today. I lay back against my pillow as I gently held the letter and its envelope over my heart. I just enjoyed her presence through this letter now. I was at peace, just as she'd wished for me . . . and I was falling pleasantly asleep.

— — — — —

The next few days passed quietly. I would wake up slowly in the mornings, with coffee in bed. And no matter what time of morning or midday I would wander over to the inn, a brunch buffet would always be waiting.

"Ve vant people to relax here," my host smiled to me when I apologised one day for continuing to come to breakfast late as I ate at my favourite window-side table. "Ve don't vant them to be on a schedule. This is their vacation. It is yours, too. Come vhenever you like."

I then couldn't resist asking a follow-up question, on a different topic however.

"Could you tell me about your niece?" I quietly asked.

"I think she vants to tell you herself," he smiled.

"Do you know why she is interested in me?" I then inquired. "I mean she's only met me twice for a very few minutes each time, and I wasn't very nice to her during either one. I don't think I'd be very interested in me after encounters like that."

Johannsen decided to sit down across from me as I ate my breakfast. He looked at me intently before speaking.

"Do you ever have senses about things?" he asked. "Like vhether they are right or wrong for you, or at least interesting?"

"I'm a scientist," I replied.

"So you go by facts, the veight of data," he surmised.

"Yep," I replied as I finished another forkful of French Toast. "And by the weight of the behavioural data I've given off so far, I'd be turned off by me."

"So vhy did you decide to come here then?" he asked. "Our scenery is good, but there are other places with better scenery. Ve are not easy to get to, and ve deal in myth and lore here—for which there definitely is not much data, especially vhen it comes to things like dragons. Yet you chose to come here. Vhy?"

That made me think.

"Well, I did get what seemed like a targeted letter from your local tourism bureau," I noted.

"Nice to know those verked," he interjected. "I vill tell the bureau to keep that up. I help send out some of those letters myself."

"I know. You signed mine, remember?" I noted as he smiled. "But how do you choose who to send those to?" I then asked. "After all, there are hundreds of millions of American and Canadian households. You couldn't send letters to all of them."

"Ve try and target those with Norwegian names," he said. "Ve verk with genealogy buffs here and elsevhere in Norway to find such names . . . mostly retired folk or students who love searching for that information. Sometimes they even find relatives. The students are starting to put it all on computers at our universities now, actually. I give those buffs nights here at the inn, in thanks at times for the addresses they provide. Then, ve send letters, appealing to our long-lost sons and daughters to come home for a visit. They tend to have such a good time, they tell friends, and then the friends come. Verd of mouth, it is good advertising."

"It worked with me," I smiled. "But you know, the letter to me felt like more than just a form letter though. It was almost a personal invitation, inviting me to come and escape my troubles, like my divorce, and my world of facts and figures . . . and come to a place of history and lore, and friendliness . . ." I said, finding myself almost lost on those last couple words.

"And that appealed to a rational, data-driven person like you," my host observed.

"Yeah, it did," I realized. "That was just the change I needed. What I wanted."

"Then maybe my niece could hold the same appeals for you that this place does," he smiled.

"Something different," I mused.

"That, my friend, I think is vhat she sees in you," he concluded with an enigmatic smile as he got up from the table now.

"Thank you," I gently smiled at him.

"You are velcome," he replied warmly.

I turned and gazed out the window beside my table as I slowly finished another cup of coffee, anticipating her return now.

That night, I wanted to try and prepare for her eventual visit . . . to try and immerse myself more in her world here. She obviously did not want me reading more about this Norse land and its history and lore, otherwise she wouldn't have had her uncle take the journal back.

So, after dinner, I lay in the grass on the bluff in front of my cabin. I watched the sun set, and then the stars come out, one by one, as the surf washed onto the beach below. It was hypnotic. It was all wonderful. I started to imagine Viking ships sailing past out in the ocean. After dark, the ships on the sea were replaced by visions of dragons flying across the sky.

I alternated between dozing and waking on that grass, even dreaming at times. I felt good, even truer to myself than I had in the past. A primal, Norwegian side seemed like it was finally emerging from what was perhaps a lifelong dormancy. Maybe I could even feel a little Viking in there somewhere, I mused.

While the grass was comfortable, the night air was becoming a little chilly . . . and that nice, warm, plush bed was calling my name. It was late now, well past midnight, and I could not resist.

As I opened the door to my cabin, there was a soft whoosh out in the sky behind me again.

_Okay,_ I smiled to myself as I paused at the doorway, without even looking behind me this time. _So what if the myths seem to blend with reality here, to the point where I can sense them? Let them be here, around me._

I welcomed it. I welcomed it all.

— — — — —

Ahhh . . . another stretch in bed. Another sunny, beautiful morning on the Norwegian coast.

I smiled and sighed as I rolled over in bed to slowly savour another morning view out my window. There was even a woman setting breakfast out on my patio table.

Blonde hair, long braids—it took me a couple seconds . . .

_It's her! My date! Oh my God!_ I silently panicked. _I've got to get up and ready here! My hair's a mess! I haven't had a shower yet! I'm in my ratty old t-shirt! Yikes!_

I leapt out of the side of the bed away from the window, dashed stumbling right past the kitchenette and the coffee-maker . . . no time for coffee this morning . . . and made a beeline for the bathroom and shower. I turned on the shower, stripped out, and plunged right in, not caring how freezing cold the water was at first. It made a good substitute for coffee in a pinch.

Now there was a knock at the door! Had I locked it? I couldn't remember.

"Good morning!" I heard clearly. "Lance?"

I hadn't locked the door.

"Uhh . . . sorry, in the shower!" I called out. Might as well be honest.

"That is fine!" I heard her voice smile. "Here is your coffee, complete with cream and sugar on the counter here. I will draw your curtains so you have privacy, and wait outside on the patio, alright?"

I was torn, but just for a second. I now stepped out of the shower, shutting it off and grabbing a towel. I had to at least thank this angel for already doing all she was for me. I wrapped the towel around my waist and bravely opened the bathroom door. I found her just about to walk back out the front door herself. She turned around and looked back.

"Hi . . ." I awkwardly smiled.

"Hello . . ." she warmly smiled back, as she allowed her gaze to wander up and down my thin, dripping-wet self. She was still in that same vintage garb. But now, she looked completely different to me.

"I . . . uhh . . . I just wanted to thank you . . . for surprising me . . . like this," I stammered.

"I had thought about just waiting for you at the inn," she replied, "just re-doing our introduction as I had written to you about. But my uncle said you tended to be a late riser. So I just did not want to waste the day here. I hope you do not mind the change in plans?"

"No, I don't," I assured. "But . . . I'm sorry, I can't remember your name."

"I am Roana," she said with a nervous but broad smile as she now instinctively came up to me with her hand extended.

"This probably isn't quite the reintroduction you had in mind is it?" I couldn't resist joking as I shook her hand anyway.

"If we were meeting in a sauna, or a hot springs, it would be perfectly appropriate," she assured, still smiling.

I smiled back at her, before saying what I really wanted to. "Roana . . . I want to say how sorry I am for the way I treated you a few days ago. I've felt terrible about that."

I suddenly found myself looking down, struggling to control tears.

"It is alright, Lance," she assured with such sweet warmth, even reaching between us and taking my right hand again, the one that wasn't holding the towel, in both her hands.

My hand involuntarily gripped hers tightly now, almost like I was grasping onto a lifeline. I struggled to regain control of myself as I closed my eyes and tried to take a deep breath.

"I should probably finish showering and get dressed here," I sighed awkwardly.

"That would be wonderful," she assured with such warmth.

"Wonderful?" I queried.

"Yes," she confirmed. "Wonderful."

I smiled as I wanted to just hug and kiss her. But I strenuously held myself in check.

"I will wait for you outside, alright?" she suggested. "Do not forget to enjoy the coffee I made you as you dress though. I have learned you like cream and sugar, I just do not know how much. So I will let you add that yourself."

"Roana," I said almost tearfully, " . . . thank you."

"You are welcome, Lance," she said softly as she closed the distance between us and kissed me on the cheek.

I could not help but turn my head slightly and kiss her back on the cheek as well.

"Careful," she smiled, "I might not want to go outside. But for you, I will."

"We have a lot to learn about each other, don't you think?" I asked cautiously.

"Yes we do," she replied. "But I have to go again tonight."

"You don't want to waste time then," I finished.

"Exactly," she concurred.

I stood there with her for a minute, finding it so hard to tear myself away from her.

"Since you only have one hand here," she suggested, "just tell me what you like in your coffee, and then take it with you as you finish in the bathroom there. We do not want it to get cold."

"Uhh . . . two sugars and a fair amount of cream," I stammered again, almost forgetting her question or offer . . . or whatever it was.

She smiled as she caressed my face with her hand, while turning to add what I'd requested for my coffee.

"Why?" I asked. "Why are you doing this?"

"Do basic kindness and thoughtfulness require a reason?" she gently countered as she added the requested cream and sugar, and stirred my coffee with a spoon.

"When you put it that way, no," I noted. "I'm sorry again here."

"Lance . . . if I may just say so," she said as she looked at me while she laid down the spoon, "you have wounds, deep in you. You have reason to distrust me, and women in general. But only someone who can care deeply, can get hurt deeply. That actually reassures me about the kind of man you are. That is why I do this, why I want to do this."

I was just stunned.

"Why not finish your shower," she suggested as she caressed the side of my face again, "and enjoy your coffee as you dress. Then let's enjoy breakfast outside and continue talking, alright?"

"Okay . . ." I said, still basically frozen where I was.

"Need help?" she smiled.

"Sorry," I replied absent-mindedly.

She just laid her arms about my shoulders and hugged me. I almost dropped my towel as I hugged her back.

"I'm about to lose it here," I tearfully cautioned, not caring about the towel at the moment.

"I am sorry," she gently said, pulling back as I managed to clutch my towel again just in time though. "I could not help myself."

"I'm glad," I tearfully smiled. "I will do as you say though, and be out in a minute."

"As I _suggest_," she corrected. "I do not like to order."

"That would be a nice change for me," I admitted.

"I will see you outside, Lance," she said, turning for the door again. "Do not rush, but let us not waste the day either."

"Thank you, Roana," I said as I now returned to the bathroom with my coffee.

"Thank me outside," she smiled as she closed the front door behind her.

— — — — —

I finished showering quickly—so fast that the water didn't really have a chance to get hot. Since she was still in her casual, and perhaps vintage garb, I just went casual, too . . . jeans, burgundy chambray shirt, nothing fancy. Then it was a quick shave with my electric razor. I had never liked or trusted blades. Finally, I ran a brush through my somewhat wavy hair brown hair, and I was ready . . . I think.

I opened the cabin's front door to find my date sitting in a chair at the patio table, with just a glass of water, enjoying the view. As soon as she heard me, she rose out of the chair.

"Oh don't get up," I encouraged.

"I want to," she smiled turning to me. "I want that second chance at meeting you, for the first time. Forget my name, would you?"

"Alright," I smiled. "Hi . . . uhh," I then said, playing along.

"Roana," she smiled with delight. "I am Roana, and you are . . ."

"Lance," I said almost absent-mindedly as I reached for her hand. "I'm Lance Hyse."

"I have heard so much about you, Mister Hyse," she said as she accepted my hand again.

"Call me Lance," I sighed pleasantly. "But you're a Johannsen, right?"

"Yes," she said, "proudly a daughter of Johann and Ruffnut."

"You keep track of your lineage that far back, eh?" I noted.

"Sure," she replied. "Just as you are a son of Hiccup and Astrid. You and I are of Berk. That is something to be very proud of."

"Why?" I asked.

"Sit and enjoy breakfast with me, and I will tell you," she invited.

"Roana," I hesitated, " . . . could we stop for a minute? This pretence anyway?"

"What is wrong, Lance?" she asked, drawing closer to me.

"This," I said. "It's all going too perfectly. After what I've been through, I'd love to play-act the perfect first date and all . . . but you're right. I still hurt. Somehow, I can't trust that this won't all blow up in my face. I should just go on pretending here for you, but I don't feel I can keep it up. I just can't."

"I do not want you to, Lance," she assured as she laid a hand on my arm. "Would you let me help you then?" she requested with such incredible knowing kindness.

"How?" I asked before I looked down, involuntarily becoming sad all over again. "No," I told myself aloud as I began to feel suddenly overwhelmed once more, " . . . not this. Not again here."

Roana just moved to embrace me. I couldn't hold it back anymore.

"Let it out," she whispered as she held me, and I embraced her back. "Let it all out now."

"I shouldn't . . . this is weak of me," I said as I tried to stem my crying, feeling almost like I was beginning to emotionally vomit in a sense.

"No, it is strong of you," she encouraged into my ear. "We do not have time today for you not to let healing in like this. Let it happen. Trust me, please. Take a leap of faith."

I let myself quietly sob now as I held her. Emotion just silently flooded out of me. She just gripped and held me tightly. I buried my nose against her comforting hair as I wept. I could even feel a tear falling down her cheek as it touched against mine.

Soon, sadness began to be transmuted into calm within me, after my proverbial storm. I began to breathe deeply, regaining my centre, a healthy and good sense of self.

"Roana . . . thank you," I said softly, still regaining my bearings.

"You're welcome," she warmly assured as she rubbed my back while she continued to hold me. "Do not let go of me though until you really feel better, alright?"

I hugged her tightly in joy now. "Why? Why are you doing this for me?" I sniffed.

"I have already answered that question once," I felt her smile as she held me. "But I will gladly repeat it, as many times as you want me to."

I now pulled my head back a little so I could look at her in thorough wonder. Her eyes locked with mine . . . I could not resist. I kissed her.

The energy in that kiss was almost overwhelming.

"I'm sorry," I apologised, breaking it off.

"Don't be," she encouraged. "I wasn't."

"But this," I gently objected. "We're . . . well, in my experience, we're moving darn fast here."

"We, especially you, are starved," she noted. "But not for food obviously, as our breakfast is untouched so far. Your spirit, even your body, was once used to a regular and healthy diet of kindness, affection, and more. Then, suddenly it was all taken away from you, perhaps with even some cruelty. You have been starving for that ever since . . . coping, but starving. Am I wrong?"

"No," I admitted, "you're not. But two people . . . it takes time for them to come together."

"Why?" she asked.

"They need to talk," I replied. "Reveal themselves, even aspects of themselves that even each of them may not know about."

"How long did you take in getting to know her in the past?" Roana asked.

I was amazed she asked that. "Two years before we . . . I mean she and I . . . were married," I nonetheless found myself answering.

"It did not work though, did it?" she noted.

"No," I had to agree, hesitantly.

"While it is not always the case," she continued, "when getting to know each other is drawn out, habits can form . . . habits of over-thinking with the mind, rather than allowing yourself to know from the heart, and act from there . . . habits of hiding yourself from the other, even from yourself. You have had time to think about me since our first encounters, and I have thought about you as well. You read my letter, right?"

"Yes, I did," I replied. "Thank you very much for that. It really gave me a lift, when I needed it."

"It was all I could do," she sighed, "not to disregard your request and turn around and keep you company on the beach that night."

"I wish you had," I sighed as well. "I regretted that so much."

"That is what I am looking for!" she said boldly, almost seizing upon my words as she looked into my eyes. "That is my confirmation that this is right. So why the games of awkward teenagers? Of those who do not know what they want, especially when we are adults?"

"But why does it have to be so fast? Even rushed?" I asked in reply.

"Because I cannot come here every day!" she said with the first irritation I had seen from her, as she now let go of me and stepped away a little. "It is a long trip for me . . . and my ride. And he has to find a place to go all day, waiting for me. It is not fair to him!"

"So you have a guy?" I couldn't resist probing.

"No!" she snapped. "It's not like that! It isn't," she said, dropping her head and looking away. "I normally do not visit for whole days like this. I just usually share dinners with my uncle late in the evenings once in a while. We exchange things . . . mail, gifts, things I've asked for . . . and then I go again, that night. But I am making exceptions, to a lot of things, to be here with you, Lance," she concluded now looking back at me. "I would love to waste time, lots of it. But I can't!"

"What am I supposed to do then?" I questioned sharply. "Go with you?"

She looked at me, but stopped herself from answering. We both froze for a moment, each knowing what her answer really was. She then looked down again in silence.

"Roana," I said gently, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have pressed you like that."

"And I am sorry, too, Lance," she said with real sadness, but saying nothing more.

I looked at her for a moment, and then looked down. I felt she was being honest with me . . . giving me as much as she could. Maybe it was time for me to give a little in return.

"Well then, let's get to it," I offered to her surprise, making a choice within myself, and pulling a chair at the patio table out for her.

"You are okay with today then?" she asked as she drew closer to me again. "With seeing what we can talk about, explore?"

"Well," I sighed, " . . . I can see this may be more than just a casual first date."

"Lance, I'm sorry," she repeated.

"It's alright, Roana," I decided. "No one else has ever done what you already have for me. I want to do this."

She now hugged me tightly in gratitude, even as she started to cry a little herself.

"This is a different way of doing things between a guy and a gal," I sighed as I held her. "But I am willing to see where this . . . where we . . . can go today. I am, for you."

"It is your choice, right?" she asked as she looked at me. "I don't want to force you. I don't believe in that."

"My choice," I affirmed. "I've had several days of living the other choice. I'm ready to explore this one now."

She just kissed me, hard. I accepted and returned her kiss with equal feeling. A shield had lowered within me. Ready or not, I began to accept her into my heart.

"Your nice breakfast is probably cold by now," I noted as I held her.

"I don't care," she tearfully replied.

"I do have a microwave in the cabin," I suggested. "At least let me heat up your portions."

"Oh," she excused. "I keep forgetting about those."

"Don't have those where you're at, eh?" I queried as I held her some more.

"Uh, no," she said somewhat uncomfortably without elaborating.

"It's alright," I assured as I hugged her tightly again. "Let me take care of you here. It's the least I can do now."

Roana smiled as she then allowed me to seat her at the table. "Put what you like on a plate here," I then invited her, "and I'll reheat it for you," as she proceeded to spoon some food onto a plate, as I did so as well.

"Hold the fruit," I cautioned, as she was about to add some melon slices to her plate. "You'll want that cold. I'll be right back with the rest of this." I couldn't resist kissing her cheek as I left.

"Thank you, Lance," she tearfully said as I parted from her for a moment.

"You're welcome, Roana," I assured.

I reheated her plate in the microwave, and then heated a plate of food for myself.

"So," I said as I soon returned outside to the table with our re-warmed food, " . . . how can we make the best use of today? What's the plan?"

"I would like us to talk about ourselves during the day here," she suggested. "Maybe walking along the beach . . . south this time, alright?"

"You'll get no argument from me!" I smiled. "Then what?"

"Then, I'd like us to share dinner back here at the inn," Roana continued. "And after dinner, I want to share with you what happens in the part of the journal you have not read yet. But not until then, alright?"

"Sounds wonderful," I agreed. "All of it."

"Thank you," she smiled. "But Lance, could I just be honest with you? Maybe dangerously so?" she then asked as we both ate.

"Well," I mused, "I, for one, am not very interested in the casual dating thing anyway. I've usually hated dates to be quite honest. And, with your time and distance constraints, if we're not honest now as friends, even perhaps dangerously honest, as you say . . . when else will we get a chance to be?"

"My thoughts exactly," she agreed.

"But is this the way we would have done things if I had accepted our beach walk several days ago?" I wondered. "Just 'voom', hi there, let's go on an instant date?"

Roana smiled a little but looked down. "It is better than it used to be among my people in ancient times," she answered. "Then, sometimes two people had no chance to get to know each other, or even consider one another before their families arranged a union."

"Union?" I stopped her in something of an apprehensive shock.

"Well, why else do men and women tend to meet?" she responded forthrightly.

"Yes," I reluctantly had to agree, "but . . ." I then cautioned, getting really uncomfortable again.

"Look," Roana sighed, "I just cannot 'get out much', as Americans say. And when I can . . ." She then stopped herself, sighing and resting her head for a moment against her hand.

I looked down for a second, but then looked at her. _Yes, but,_ I even thought to myself. She was right—but to talk about it, up front? Something then stopped me though. She had taken risks for me, even coming to find me on that remote beach, not to mention having just openly invited me to cry on her shoulder. _Give her a chance,_ I felt from somewhere inside. _Be a friend._

"Roana, I'm sorry," I found myself apologising again as she glanced at me, still resting her head against her hand, now with a tear in her eye. "Just go for it," I encouraged, as I went back to eating. "Say what you want."

"Really?" she asked, seeming unsure as her head still rested in her palm.

"Really," I confirmed, looking at her.

"Now I have lost my thoughts," she admitted as she looked down with embarrassment.

"They'll come back to you," I assured some more.

"Ah yes," she then seemed to remember. "Could we talk about love? Just get it out on the table between us?"

She did it again . . . put me right back into, 'yes, but.'

"Are you sure?" I replied apprehensively.

"I'm sorry, Lance," she winced.

"You know, we're saying that to each other way too much," I decided with a slight smile.

"We are," she agreed.

We both decided to take bites of our food for a moment to distract ourselves.

"What about it?" I then asked through a mouthful of scrambled eggs. "What about love?"

"Lance, I'm sorry," she apologised again.

"No, just tell me," I assured.

"Well to me, love is a choice, as much as it is a feeling," she began as we each took another forkful of our breakfasts . . .

— — — — —

We found ourselves now easily continuing that conversation right through breakfast, and while we carried the plates and cutlery back to the inn together.

"True," I admitted as she led us not to the lobby door this time, but to a different door off along one side of the brown-shingled, two-storey building. "But there was a lot of unhappy pairings, and certainly abuse in Medieval times."

"But where do you think the poets, writers, singers and storytellers got their ideas for love?" she countered as she opened the door for us both. "People normally discovered love _after_ they got married. Families and society back then wouldn't often permit them to otherwise."

There was that 'yes, but' again. Yes, she was still direct, way too direct. But I was enjoying her points now, and our conversation.

"Tusen takk, Onkel," Roana quickly said to her uncle as we dropped it all off in the inn's kitchen. "Vi har fått til stranden. Så jeg tenkte kanskje middag på hytta hans senere."

"Herlig! Jeg vil sikre at den er der for deg," Johannsen replied warmly as he embraced her. "Fyrir því drekar," he quietly added.

"Fyrir því drekar," Roana softly replied as she embraced him back.

I could detect something about dragons or 'drekar', curiously in Old Norse now, in what they were saying to each other. But I figured it was a family saying they had between them.

Then my host turned to me, with just one request. "Please trust her," Johannsen simply urged, looking at me over his half-rimmed glasses.

That wasn't quite what I was expecting him to say. I gave him a slightly quizzical look. Roana just moved close beside me, looking at me as we each put an arm around one another.

"I already do," I decided as I looked back at her.

But now, I couldn't help feeling that my trust might be called upon later, maybe even tested a little.


	5. Chapter 5

Soon Roana and I were off to the beach. It was a warm, sunny day for springtime in Norway, and I was arm-in-arm with a beautiful woman, even if she was somewhat oddly dressed, who was already caring for me in surprising ways. I could not be happier, but I still had some doubts.

From the way she was glancing at me as we walked south along the shore, I could tell nerves had now caught up with her somewhat though. We had experienced a breakthrough. We were on a date. But as far as I knew, and from what she had told me so far . . . today was all we had. Should I open up further, only to lose her tonight? Or play it safe and keep my distance? As we walked south together along the beach with the crashing surf nearby and gentle, grassy dunes on our other side, hand-in-hand most of the way, I just didn't know.

"You have been quiet," Roana observed, interrupting my internal debate.

"Well," I covered, searching for a topic and wanting to shift the conversation to my comfort zone for a change, "I must say, I'm impressed with your English. You speak it almost as an American would, with a very mild Norwegian accent. Where did you learn it?"

"I was an exchange student at Washington State University in America, pursuing their veterinary program with a minor in animal husbandry," she answered. "I went there hoping to learn how to correct the inbreeding problems among my village's animals. But I was not able to complete my course work, as the veterinarian in my village was old and fell too sick to continue working. Word reached me that I was needed back, so I returned. I have been there ever since. I know how to treat injuries and diseases, but not how to resolve the inbreeding problems."

"Curious," I remarked. "Inbreeding was one of my areas of study before I settled on exobiology. I was considering making inbreeding, even saving rare species, into something of a career before NASA put out the call for biologists. My studies on such issues became useful though in theorizing on the requirements for long-term interplanetary expeditions, relocating livestock to space colonies, and the like."

"Lance, this is earlier than I wanted to talk about it," Roana said enigmatically, pausing cautiously as she glanced at me.

_Uh oh,_ I thought, even, _darn._ She was stealing the conversation back from me, and taking it up again to her level. I was feeling tactically out-manoeuvred more than anything else though, like she had just made a really good chess move to retake control of the game between us. I was actually beginning to enjoy this about her—enjoying these challenges she was quietly presenting me with.

"But I want to hint at it for now, for you to think about," she continued. "Would you like to make a real difference with your expertise? A world of difference?"

"At your village?" I deduced, deciding to play along.

"Yes," she replied.

"So, are you wanting me for my expertise, or for me?" I countered.

"Both," she replied with a smile.

"So," I began guessing wildly, " . . . it's like I am the one absolutely perfect guy, who just happens to be drawn here. Maybe you or someone even read of my work with NASA, even perhaps saw my few published journal articles. Plus, I am a descendant of Berk, of legendary chieftains, even a journal-writing chief, no less, and you all said to yourselves, 'We have got to get that guy to join us!' And, you were looking for that one in a million man who could maybe just come to share your passion in caring for your animals, and making sure their kind lasted into the future. Is that about it?"

"What if it was?" she posed.

"Feels a little like a trap to me," I now replied with some caution.

"Or a home," she countered. "A wonderful one, with deep meaning and purpose. A place where people live and work together in harmony, because what they are there for is so important."

"Really?" I asked.

"Really," she assured.

"What could be so important though?" I wondered. "Saving reindeer . . . in a Lapp village?"

"No," she smiled. "But I'm impressed you know of Finnmark's Sami people. You are a Viking . . . who needs to come home."

"Can I tell you something?" I hesitantly decided.

"Anything," Roana smiled as she wrapped her arm around me again as we continued walking south on the beach.

"After I visited Berk, with your uncle a few days ago," I confessed, glancing at her, "I recognized that this feels like home to me now . . . the place where I want to be."

Roana all but cried as she stopped us and turned towards me, hugging me tightly for a moment. It was almost like I was already proposing to her.

"America, or even Canada," I added as I held her, "no longer feel like home to me. This does."

She then kissed me hard.

"Allow me to ease into this though, would you?" I asked, almost laughing after our kiss.

"I'm sorry," she apologized as she continued holding me. "It's just that my village is small, and I haven't had much of a social life . . . or prospects, in a good while," she added hesitantly as she looked down.

"I understand," I assured as I drew her closer again and she rested her head on my shoulder. "But I just feel like there's a priest and a wedding gazebo waiting right around the corner somewhere here," I tried to quip lightly.

That cooled her down for some reason.

"We have no priests in my village," she said with reservation as she pulled back a little. "We still honour the old ways . . . the old Norse ways. We co-exist with the Christians, but we are not Christian ourselves, and never have been."

"Wait . . . you're all Berkers?" I began to realize with amazement, remembering what I had last read in the journal. "The followers . . . you mean Hiccup . . . my ancestor . . . ?"

"Not now. Not here with public around, please," Roana earnestly requested with concern in her voice.

"But what threat could there possibly be in disregarding Christianity these days?" I asked.

"It is not that," she assured, " . . . at least not in the last two centuries."

"Then what?" I asked.

"Please, save this for later," she now insisted. "Trust me."

"This is why your uncle asked me to trust you, didn't he?" I said, now feeling nervous. "I am feeling like this may be a trap now . . . a dark one."

"No," Roana now said with some sadness as I instinctively pulled away from her. "It is anything but that, please trust me. I was not ready for this quite yet. You were not ready."

"Why? Because I wasn't sufficiently 'conditioned'?" I questioned as I now stood apart from her. "I wasn't sufficiently lulled into complacency through talk and pledges of love yet?"

"No," she tearfully replied. "I will tell you all of it, soon . . . over dinner and afterwards. I will answer all your questions, and you will have a totally free choice, I promise. I swear, it is anything but bad, and I will do anything but betray you and the trust you are beginning to give me. Please, Lance."

I turned away from her, needing to think, as I heard her start to cry behind me.

"This is why you can't fall in love in a day," I said.

Her crying behind me was beginning to break my heart for her though. I reasoned she wouldn't be crying like she was if she was just trying to snare me for some evil plot.

_Dragons?_ I briefly thought. Nah, that was just too far out. They didn't exist. No scientific evidence of them had ever emerged. But in Hiccup's journal they had seemed so real. _No way, Hyse!_ I forcefully told myself again however.

I decided to just hope it wasn't some warped Eugenics project like the Nazis had performed to 'purify the Aryan race' during World War II. At least there was documented evidence the Nazis had tried to do that.

_Is Roana deluded?_ I briefly wondered. She seemed all too sober and rational as I briefly glanced back at her. I considered though that she had already treated me better, and more thoughtfully, than anyone else ever had. Anyone.

So I took a deep breath, looked briefly down at the sand in front of me, and decided to take a leap . . . a _really_ flying leap.

I turned back towards her. Roana was quietly sobbing now. Her head was down and her arms were wrapped tightly across her as she tried to comfort herself. She couldn't be faking stuff like this. I could see she really felt torn, or like she was about to lose a fond dream.

"Roana," I gently said as I returned in front of her. "Your uncle asked me to trust you . . . and I can see this is why."

At first, she could only tearfully nod in response as she avoided my gaze. Then, she moved or leaned a little towards me as she continued looking down. I couldn't help but take her into my arms and begin comforting her. Roana had done no less for me just this morning. She wrapped her arms tightly around my back and cried with relief.

"I'm sorry, Roana," I apologized as I held her close now. "It's alright, it is. I'm still here, and ready to keep exploring with you. I just got a little scared there for a moment. It's not the usual new boyfriend-girlfriend stuff you're talking here."

She laughed through her tears briefly as she buried her head against my shoulder.

"I'm sorry, too," she sniffed as her crying diminished. "My dreams here . . . I have been too attached to them perhaps."

"What's wrong with cherishing your dreams?" I now encouraged.

"You mean that?" she now asked as she raised her tear-streaked face to look at me.

"Yes," I assured.

We tearfully kissed each other on the beach now. A few families with kids, and other people were around, but Roana and I didn't care. It was a good, long, deep kiss. Finally though, we gently ended it.

"Well, I think we've crossed another threshold on our path of exploration here," I then suggested to her tearful delight.

Roana thrust her arms around my neck and hugged me tightly again. "I will treat you so well, even as a girlfriend, I promise," she pledged. "And after dinner here, there will be no secrets between us. I am looking forward to sharing everything with you. I want to. And I promise, if you do not feel good about what I reveal to you—as difficult as it may be for me—I will let you go, Lance. I will. I love you . . . that much."

"Roana . . ." I said with some discomfort again.

"I do not mean to scare you with that, either," she said as she looked into my eyes, uncertain of how I took that. "Sorry I am so direct."

"I'm beginning to get used to it," I decided with a smile. "But I'll admit that love has been a really disappointing word to me over the last year or so. I had two years to get used to it the last time, and it didn't work. So hearing it the same day I meet someone, or even a few days after I avoid them . . . it's scary stuff, Roana."

"I understand," she replied, now looking disappointed.

"But you know," I continued, "I just can't say no to it . . . especially when you're saying it to me, offering it to me like this. I still want us to pace ourselves a little. I know you are doing the best you can with what your limits are. So how about I do the best I can here, too? For you . . . and for us."

I was suddenly the recipient of one of the fiercest hugs I had ever known. I hugged Roana fiercely right back as well.

"Is this the breakthrough you were hoping for?" I asked as we held each other tightly.

I could only feel her nodding her head against me. It felt good, and I now felt that there was only good between us. I put any fears I had about her and her intentions aside.

"You ready to start walking back to that nice dinner you talked about?" I warmly suggested.

"Yes," she said, even as she couldn't stop hugging me tightly.

"No rush," I replied.

We both laughed. I kissed her, both gently and hard.

"Can I confess something to you?" she now asked.

"What?" I invited.

"When I first saw you in that towel this morning," she said, "I wanted to take it off you. I was glad it was slipping down during our first embrace."

"Roana!" I laughed.

"We Vikings do not mess around," she smiled as we relaxed our embrace of each other. "We used to take what we wanted. Sometimes, we still do."

"You consider yourself a real Viking still?" I asked as we then turned and began to retrace our steps along the beach back towards the inn.

"Yes," she confirmed. "For my ancestors, for what they gave up so that we could have what they passed down to us . . . I do consider myself a Viking, and even more importantly, a Berk Viking. That is my first and real allegiance, even before Norway."

"So your people are still around? Still together in a sense?" I began to surmise. "Is that why your uncle said archaeologists aren't really finding anything in Berk itself?"

"We never abandoned Berk," she quietly replied. "We took it with us . . . in a couple of different directions. But I will explain all that over dinner, alright? I want to give you the whole story."

"Roana, forgive me for asking perhaps such a bold question here," I hesitated.

"Ask me," she invited, almost challenged.

"How will the night end?" I gently asked.

"It will be your choice," she replied as she placed her hand on my heart. "I promise."

For a moment, that answer now scared me.

— — — — —

"Oh my God," I sighed as we finally approached my cabin via the wooded path later.

"You like it?" she asked me.

"Like it?" I replied. "Roana . . . it's incredible."

A beautiful candlelight dinner for two was now set before us on my cabin patio. The chairs were only ninety degrees apart, so we could both enjoy a view of the ocean sunset, and be close to each other as well. Two tall candles graced the round patio table that was now covered with a fine, white tablecloth, along with a complete silver setting and a floral centrepiece. The food was arrayed in heated pans set up along a rectangular linen-covered serving table off to one side, and a chilled bottle of Champaign was in its own free-standing ice bucket beside our dining table as well.

"I feel I should dress up for the occasion here," I noted.

"You are fine," Roana assured. "But just let us undo another button on your shirt here," she suggested, as she now proceeded to do so. "There," she concluded as she ran her fingers across my slightly more exposed chest.

"What do I get in the way of evening dress from you?" I slyly asked, noting no similar buttons or straps that could be undone on her tunic.

"Sorry my Viking clothes are so practical," she sheepishly apologised. "I have not worn anything even approaching a real dress since WSU. I will try and make this up to you at some point though."

"That's good enough for me," I assured. "But, Roana, before we sit down, and before you tell me what you're going to, I just want to thank you for an incredible morning and afternoon. If . . . If I may say so, I even think I'm falling for you here . . . love that is, if such a thing can happen in a day."

"I want you to choose to love me," she requested as she looked at me. "That would mean so much more to me than simply giving into feelings you think you have little control over."

"You're talking commitment here," I noted with both a smile and with caution.

"Dangerous truth time again between us?" she asked.

"Alright," I accepted.

"As I shared somewhat this morning, that is what real love is to me," she said. "The rest . . . it is just passing infatuation. I would almost rather not talk about love between us unless it is choice. That is when you love someone."

"But, Roana . . . it's so soon," I sighed with real reservation now.

"I know," she replied straightforwardly. "But for me, and what I have chosen in life now, it cannot be otherwise. I will explain it all very shortly here. Please bear with me, Lance. Please try."

"If our places were reversed," I posed, "would you commit, before you knew what you have yet to tell me?"

"I can understand your point, and your hesitation," she replied. "I, too, would want to hear the whole story first. And that is what I will tell you, after dinner."

"Roana, ideally I would want to choose to love you," I said, "to really love you. But love isn't some switch I can turn on or off inside myself. It's an awareness . . . a knowing. One I have to grow into, not just decide in a moment here."

"I know, Lance," she replied without hesitation. "We are each stretching ourselves across a great chasm here. I am stretching for you as far as I can. All I can ask or hope for is that you will stretch and reach for me as far as you can, too, alright? I know that this is confusing and makes no sense to you right now. But this is who I am, and what I live with. All I ask for right now is that you explore it with me this evening. If you do not like or cannot live with what you find out, I will let you go, I promise."

I looked at her for a moment as she looked straight back at me. Already there was something about her, something I couldn't deny within myself. "Alright," I decided. "Let's keep going here."

Roana was visibly relieved, even sighing as she moved to embrace me again. I could see she was under real stress here. I couldn't help now but feel moved, even drawn, to begin caring for her.

"It's alright, Roana," I assured as I held and gently rocked her for a moment. "I'm here, with you."

"Thank you, Lance," she quietly accepted. "You have no idea how much I appreciate this from you right now."

"Well," I said, "I've been developing some pretty thick walls around me and my heart lately. So there's nothing like a 'trust and love me, or lose me' challenge from you to just bust through all that."

"Would you do that for me, Lance?" she asked as she moved her head back a little from my shoulder and looked at me. "Give me a chance for trust and love with you?"

"Alright, a chance," I agreed as I held her. "That's the best answer I can give you right now, at least until I've heard the rest here soon."

"I accept your choice," she responded as she gave me a gentle kiss. "You are both wise, and yet giving, in your answer. I . . . I will just tell you though that I chose to love you when you were just a vague hope to me. That is very risky, even very dangerous. It is not right for everyone. I have been sending love to you on the winds, wherever you were, for a long time."

"How did you, or do you, know it's me though that you really love?" I asked.

"I have been sending love to the right man for me for sometime now," she answered. "I can choose, I can believe it could be you. I can choose to just give love to you, until I am proven wrong. If that happens, I will pick myself up, and begin loving again anyway. It is who I choose to be."

"Roana . . ." I admired in awe.

"That is what awaits you," she said, "if you choose to love me, too."

That challenge of hers made me pause. To put it in cowboy terms, she had 'lassoed' me with that one.

"But how can you or I know?" I countered, almost resisting in a sense like a cornered stallion now. "I mean, I thought it was right with my ex-wife, but it wasn't."

"I know, Lance," Roana empathized. "Love, just like life, means we will make mistakes and misjudge things at times. I have, too, and it hurts when that happens." Tears now fell from her eyes, and she moved to hide her face against my neck and shoulder. "But we try again, Lance. That is all we can do. Please try again, with me . . . would you?"

I couldn't refuse a request like that, or her. "I'll try, Roana," I decided as I held her closer now, "with you. I mean it."

She couldn't say a word. She just held me very tightly as she pressed her face against my neck and shoulder. We just stood like that for moments, silently embracing each other. I could hear her breathing as she gently cried against me. That opened me towards her even more as I just held her, letting her know that I felt for her, and was connecting with her.

Eventually Roana's quiet crying subsided. She raised her tearful face to me again, and we kissed each other, tentatively . . . still knowing though that there was one more bar, one more hurdle for us to cross together in this exploration of ours.

"I'm sorry," she apologized as she then wiped her eyes with a hand while my arms were loosely around her waist once more.

"It's alright," I assured with a gentle smile. "Besides, we've been saying that way too much to each other today, remember?"

Roana began smiling back at me. I kissed her this time, mostly to assure her I was sincere. We silently moved to kiss each other's cheeks, jaws, and finally necks, before we just breathed one another in. Our attraction to each other was already growing, and was even powerful, when we allowed it to be.

"Come, let us enjoy dinner together," she decided, toning things down again for the moment. "But here," she added as she turned from me and passed what would be her chair, "I at least owe you this."

She then proceeded to remove her leather vest. Like a gentleman, I helped her with it, all the while unable to avoid admiring her now somewhat more revealed shoulders under her sleeveless, tank top-like blue tunic. I was about to suggest she remove her dark blue fabric forearm guards as well, but they looked like they required a lot of unwrapping. So I decided to leave them be.

"I hardly ever take that vest off," she confessed with a sniff, still trying to recover herself, "except when I go to bed. I almost feel exposed without it!"

"Don't get cold," I encouraged.

"I won't" Roana assured as she drew near to me again. "But come, let's have dinner. I do not often enjoy spreads like this, either," she then invited as she led me by the hand to our own private buffet table.

"How do we, or I, thank your uncle for all this?" I asked as we each picked up plates and began serving ourselves from among the delicious-looking offerings. "This would be a big addition to the bill for my stay here."

"Just honour his request," she said with a gentle smile as she looked at me.

"Trust you," I replied.

"Yes," she affirmed. "But let's eat first. The journal is behind the floral centrepiece on the table. That, along with the cake here, will be our dessert."

When we sat down at the table with our plates, I popped the cork and poured each of us a glass of Champaign to go along with our meal.

"To you . . . maybe us," I tentatively proposed in a toast, lifting my glass.

"To our trust . . . and love," Roana counter-proposed, raising her own and gently upping the stakes. "Skal!"

I smiled at her, knowing what she was doing. Roana just looked right at me as she held her own glass up for me to clink in acceptance. I just looked down for a second, smiling and shaking my head, before I looked back at her and clinked her glass with mine, accepting her counter-toast. "That's the Old Norse toast," I noted as I did.

"Exactly," she replied.

"Skal!" I confirmed.

There was a moment of silence among us as we began eating.

"I'm sorry," I remembered. "Do you say any mealtime blessings to the gods? I haven't been very religious myself, but as I am in your land, I thought I should ask here."

"_Our_ land," she corrected. "You are Viking, too. You have just forgotten. And it will be my privilege, even honour, to help you become reacquainted with it, and with yourself. But no," she assured. "I am aware some Christian households can get offended if 'grace' is forgotten, but warriors often had little time for such formalities, and the gods and Spirit know our hearts anyway. Forgive me though, are you a serious Christian?"

"Roana," I sighed, looking down, "to be honest, I haven't known what to believe since the divorce I've gone through. I didn't feel all that supported after my divorce by my Anglican faith that I grew up with in Canada. My local priest where I've been living in the U.S. would listen to me, but not seem to do much otherwise. It all has caused me to re-evaluate my life, and examine my understanding of everything. I decided to learn about my Norse roots, to keep my mind occupied and away from sadness, if nothing else. I began reading translations of Viking legends and mythology, even learning to read runes. It all introduced me to a different world," I sighed as I looked down. "A world I've felt at times that I just want to run away to, even lose myself in. It's partly why I came on this trip . . . a lot why, actually."

I felt Roana take my hand on the table and grip it firmly. I looked up to see her gently smiling at me.

"What?" I asked, almost smiling myself.

"I think you may like what we share over dessert soon," she would only say.

"Roana . . . I feel lost right now," I admitted. "You're the first person . . . the first friend, aside from perhaps your uncle, who's reached out to me lately . . . tried to understand where I'm at."

"I am glad, Lance," she replied, looking at me. "I am very sorry for you, but I am glad to be a first real friend for you, since all that."

I buried my eyes in my free hand for a moment. I felt Roana let go of my hand and now get up. Then I felt her just walk over behind me as I slumped forward in my seat a little and wrap herself around me.

"If no one else does, Lance," she softly whispered in my ear, " . . . I love you."

"You can't . . . not yet," I sniffed, still hiding my eyes.

"I choose to," she gently replied. "It's a gift . . . accept it."

I sat up again in my chair, still within her embrace from behind as I wiped my eyes. "I'm sorry," I apologised.

"You have nothing to apologise for," she assured as she kissed my cheek. "Nothing."

I could only look at her supportive eyes, right next to mine, as I tearfully shook my head in wonder.

"It's alright," she warmly assured. "Just let things both in, and out, here. You will feel better."

I looked at her, almost disbelievingly for a moment. Her eyes just continued to calmly look at me, even into me.

"You ready to get back to dinner here?" she invited, rubbing my arms and chest a little as she still held me from above and behind. "I'm looking forward to sharing dessert with you, and a real talk . . . close."

"Alright," I managed to smile a little. "I'll have to admit, all this is intriguing me."

"It should," she gently smiled back as she gave me another kiss on the cheek before letting go of me and resuming her own seat. "But for now, ask me a more mundane question."

"Well," I thought for a moment, " . . . do you still hate Christians? Like Hiccup seemed to begin to in the journal?"

"He never hated the Christians, and neither have I," she replied as she resumed eating. "We have just not liked their intolerance of other ways, or of other life. They are getting better now . . . more broad-minded, at least in some churches. But they still aren't ready."

"Ready for what?" I asked.

"For the truth of what I will tell you after dinner here," she said.

"This is gonna be one big talk, isn't it?" I nervously smiled.

"You have no idea," she smiled right back.

"Ohh boy," I sighed, looking down.


	6. Chapter 6

_Note_

_Thanks to you, May, 2011 was a record month. You and 2,056 others read chapters from my eleven stories a total of 7,092 times on this site. This and the many kind reviews from a good number of you, have convinced me to start writing in earnest._

_So I have now embarked on developing my first original story—one that has been in the back of my mind for sometime—as both a screenplay and a companion novel. While I will continue releasing further chapters and will eventually complete both my 'in progress' stories on FanFiction, the uploads may be a little less frequent._

_If, or rather when, something happens, I will let you know. But I won't be hesitant to let folks know that my adventure in writing started right here, with you._

— _Norwesterner_

* * *

><p>Aside from the looming shadow of our coming talk however, it was the perfect romantic dinner, the best I had ever known. The roast mutton and vegetables I was having were incredible. We paused as we ate to enjoy the setting sun together, just still quietly holding hands. And Roana . . . she was already a rock-steady friend to me. But there was this indescribable element of 'wow' there about her now as well, like nothing I'd ever felt about anyone ever before. It wasn't just her beauty, it was everything about her.<p>

As the stars came out in the sky around us while we were enjoying our dessert, an exquisite Lemon Poppy-Seed cake with delectable white frosting, I was disturbed from my thoughts about her by someone else coming along the path.

"Forgive the intrusion," Johannsen excused as he approached us, wearing his usual grey and white cardigan and half-rimmed glasses. "I should be getting the rest of this food back to the kitchen. It vill make a fine stew tomorrow."

"Please," I offered, getting up out of my seat. "You've done so much for us here, allow me to help."

"No, no," he declined. "Your time vith Roana is far more important. Her time here is very precious. I just need to stack these trays like so," he noted as he put the lids back on several serving pans and then expertly stacked them as he blew out the pan warmers, " . . . and I am gone for tonight. My staff and I vill just collect the rest in the morning. Enjoy, please."

"We have been," I assured. "And I am very grateful for all you have done here."

"It has been my pleasure," he replied as he stopped to shake my hand as he balanced the pans in his other arm and hand that were fortunately covered by his cardigan.

I looked at him strangely again. It was as if he was bidding me farewell.

"Fyrir því drekar," he simply said as he looked me in the eye, and then turned and left.

"Goodnight," I replied, not knowing what to make of what he had just said to me.

When I turned back around, Roana had already risen from her seat at the table and picked up Hiccup's journal.

"Here," she invited, "there's just room in this patio armchair for the two of us. Besides, I am getting just a little cool. I would appreciate your warmth."

I smiled and sat down first, inviting her to join me.

As she then sat down with me and I put an arm around her, we looked at each other, knowing a real moment of truth had arrived.

"Know that this is my life," she said as she briefly gripped the journal in her lap with both hands, " . . . what I am about to tell you. A life that I have freely chosen, just as I will offer you the choice. This is personal to me, very personal."

"Just what kind of choice are we talking about here?" I asked.

"Life," she simply replied, nervously glancing down as she nonetheless tried to maintain her gaze on me. I could tell she was really on edge.

"Is there anything I can do to make things more comfortable as you begin here?" I asked, trying to be accommodating.

"Wish me luck," she said.

"With me?" I queried.

"Yes," she confirmed as we both smiled nervously for a moment.

"Well, Roana . . . good luck, with me," I wished with a little uncertainty as I moved closer and we kissed. Suddenly, it was so satisfying, unlike anything I had ever known before. She did not want to end our kiss right away, and I didn't force her to. All too soon though, our lips were parting.

"Keep me warm, would you?" she invited as our kiss ended. "Just hold me. This is scary for me. I know how I want this to turn out . . . but I don't know if it will."

"What could be so difficult here?" I wondered as I loosely cradled her with my arms.

"Allow me to explain," she suggested.

"Okay, begin," I agreed with growing curiosity.

"Uncle told me you left off in the journal," Roana began hesitantly, "where Hiccup and the village were deciding whether to abandon their beliefs and allow the dragons to leave or be slaughtered, or somehow resist or fight the Christian armies under the Church and Norse king, right?"

"Yes," I confirmed. "I didn't want to stop reading, but I had been reading straight for over a solid day . . . almost thirty hours. The Norse was difficult to read at first, but I persisted. Finally though, I felt an assurance from somewhere that they would be alright. I fell asleep right then."

"You listened," she marvelled. "The ancestors, yours especially, spoke to you."

"They must have," I responded. "I also felt them, and others, when I visited Berk. Some of them were not human though . . . I could seem to tell, somehow."

"Would you believe those were dragons?" she asked.

"I have a hard time with that idea," I replied.

"That is what the early Christians did in their zeal to convert all of us to their ways," she said. "They wiped out a world, and beings, that once were . . . because they did not conform to their ideas of what should be. Or rather, they wiped out the knowledge and memory of them, reducing them to demonic and hated myths."

"Dragons?" I guessed aloud.

"Dragons," she confirmed.

"They exist . . . now?" I asked doubtfully.

"Yes," she confirmed. "I will introduce you to one shortly."

"Wait . . . you're kidding, right?" I said, not expecting her to take it that far.

"No, I am not kidding," she said gently but deliberately. "Tell me though, what are 'First Contact' protocols? And why have both NASA, and some anthropologists who work with newly-discovered aboriginal tribes, been adopting them?"

"We were still developing them when I left NASA," I noted, surprised that she knew about them, "for theoretical purposes, at least as far as I was concerned, more than any thing else. They are basically a set of procedures however, designed to carefully introduce primitive people to radically different people, beings, civilizations or ideas that would have previously been inconceivable, impossible, or even god-like to them. I was part of a team that was developing the protocols for scenarios in cases where we either encountered aliens elsewhere in our eventual space travels, or if aliens from another world contacted us in one form or another here on Earth first. But how did you know about them?"

"How do you think we are able to keep the existence of dragons a secret still in this day and age?" she posed. "With help from our own, on the outside. Berk, or rather New Berk as we came to call it, is now in two parts . . . those of us who live with, and care for, the dragons in my island village . . . and those on the outside, like my uncle here, who help us, each in their own way."

"Wait . . . are you doing a 'First Contact' on me?" I asked.

"Yes," she replied directly. "I am human, however," she added. "But let me explain, okay?"

"Hmmm . . . direct admission of truths at a certain point," I noted out loud. "You are doing it just as we'd envisioned. Alright," I sighed with reservation, " . . . go on."

"We of Berk are still one people though," she continued. "Through carefully avoiding conquests, inquisitions, wars and plagues around us, we have been devoted to one purpose through the centuries . . . the purpose that Hiccup and Astrid gave us . . . to safeguard the dragons, and our ways, so that they would survive and endure into the future. We are still on that quest, almost a thousand years later. We have all sworn to protect the dragons at the cost of our lives, and many have died over the centuries for that cause. We honour their sacrifice, and the dragons, by continuing.

"We are at an important time though," she noted. "The inbreeding problem I mentioned earlier is among the dragons. Fury's brittle eggshell trait Hiccup wrote about in the journal has become critical in recent times among the Night Furies. It is now evident among all the breeding-age females of that species. We have to resolve it soon, or they may go extinct. We need a top-level biologist . . . you . . . with your learning in inbreeding issues, to work with them and the other surviving species closely if a thousand years of sacrifice is to be saved."

"They . . . the dragons in the journal, really exist?" I asked, looking down and then at her.

"Yes," she calmly assured, "they exist."

"You know how big this is?" I asked with reservation.

"I am fully aware," Roana replied, "which is why we have to be so careful . . . with them, with everything. As you can appreciate, knowledge of their existence has to remain hidden for now. The world is no more ready to accept the existence of what they'd perceive to be mythical, even dangerous, fire-breathing dragons, than they would be ready to accept the existence of aliens from another planet or star system."

"Don't I know that," I appreciated.

"Then you understand why we do things the way we do," she responded with optimism, even some seeming joy.

"Yeah," I said, taking a breath, " . . . I can see it. But you said I had a choice here. If I decline, how can you be sure I will keep it a secret? Is this one of those, 'You'll have to kill me' cases?"

"While we have killed to protect the dragons over the centuries," she answered, "the dragons actually did not like that. So we have developed memory-erasing drugs for many years now, and are very good at it. I carry several pre-dosed syringes with me at all times while I am away from the village. We do import some things like syringes from the outside now. We used to slip it into drinks, actually. But for the dragons, I am prepared to administer a shot to you if you firmly decline. You will be free to live your life after that, but you will not remember most of your stay here, or me. My uncle would give you an alternate explanation of how you spent the last few days if you got curious."

"I don't know if I want to lose the last few days," I responded, "especially my visit to Berk, and you."

"I do not want you to lose that either, or to lose you or what might be possible for us," she empathized. "I will cry for my loss here, if that happens. But for the work, and lives, of all those who passed what they protected down to me . . . to us . . . over the last thousand years, I will if I have to."

"That's the other thing," I now added, looking at her, " . . . us. I suppose there's a shoe to drop there, too, right?"

"As you can appreciate, Lance," Roana said, taking a breath, " . . . I cannot meet, or marry, just anybody."

"There's that other shoe," I sighed, now rubbing my forehead with my free hand.

"Yes, there is that 'other shoe'," she agreed, just looking at me quietly for a moment.

"Do I or we have to decide that right now?" I asked.

"No," she replied. "But I want it on the table between us, because it needs to be there . . . please?"

"Marriage . . ." I mused. Even though I had joked about it earlier in the day, it still felt daunting to me. "What the heck," I sighed though, feeling things had just gone right over the edge now, and that I might as well ask any question I liked. "You never found any other Berker to marry?" I then queried.

"No," she admitted. "That is of course a long story . . . one that I will be glad to share with you over time. But I am sorry, Lance," she then apologised.

"Sorry for what?" I asked.

"I am sorry that we cannot have a normal courtship or relationship that most enjoy," she replied.

I looked at her now, like she almost was really capable of reading my mind. "That is just such a leap for me, Roana," I confessed.

"I know, Lance," she empathized. "But the divide, the veil, that exists between my village and the rest of the world has to be maintained. While you can briefly come to my village, see what I am talking about and still decline, once someone like you crosses over, they cannot go back. That is a truth I have to share with you now. Anyone you know will not even really be able to attend a wedding feast for us," she continued with a surreal calm, "if you decide to go forward with me, as they're not part of our community, and so cannot know about us."

I just looked down now, utterly stunned—but appreciating the truth, and the logic, of what she was telling me. "This is a 'First Contact' situation now alright," I sighed, "practically for the marriage element, as much as for the dragons and the existence of your village and people."

"Let's address that, okay?" she sighed as well. "Marriage is a journey, Lance, not a destination. As we touched on this morning, people have been marrying first, deciding to start that journey, and then finding and even choosing love together, for thousands of years. Romance as a prerequisite is a recent human invention. Feelings come and go—choices do not. You can choose again differently, but choices do not fade. Choices _to_ love even reinforce the feelings _of_ love and help them to last. I had a woman friend in college at WSU who married, but soon divorced, saying she didn't love him anymore . . . that the 'feeling' just wasn't there for her any longer. She was governed by whims that came and went, never by steady choices to care for the man she briefly married. I felt sorry for him, he was a good guy. But he was not quite right for me, and I was still kind of her friend at the time."

"I have never heard a woman express such views as yours before," I noted. "It is a novel perspective."

"One that works," she emphasized. "I have seen it work in my village over and over again. We have limited choices there. It is difficult to escape from each other. So we choose to stick with our lives there and make things work, because safeguarding the dragons is that important to us."

"But you seem to come and go here," I countered. "Why couldn't I come and go, too? Why couldn't we have a celebration on the outside?"

"How would you explain your new life, and where you would live?" she posed. "Not to mention the beings you would live with? You would have to disappear to the world out here, in order to live there."

"You can't be serious though," I objected. "Dragons have never been documented, other than in myth. No physical evidence of them has ever emerged."

"I will show you a truth your world is not ready to accept," she gently but firmly replied, "in just a moment here. Then judge whether I am serious or not."

I rested my forehead in my free hand as I just looked down again. I was about ready to call an end to it all. This was just too much. But something inside stopped me.

"So, I can't even go home now and pack?" I then asked, still looking down.

"No, not without me erasing your memory," she cautioned. "Then you would not have a reason to. Our network will retrieve some things for you if you really want. You tell me what they are, and I will see that you get them . . . whatever you want. That will be one of my personal promises to you. The village will want to make you decently happy anyway, as your work will have the highest priority."

"Roana . . . you're asking a lot here," I sighed.

"I know, Lance," she empathized. "I am so sorry, I am. But because of the dragons, and what we have to do to protect them, there is no other way. I have been looking for a very special man though. One who could accept a challenge such as this . . . who could find happiness and meaning in what I offer. I would do anything for that man, more than any other woman you would ever meet . . . at least I think so," she tried to joke to relieve the pressure between us somewhat.

"You're really asking me to drop everything," I double-checked, "just disappear from everyone I've ever known, and confine myself to a single village, or wherever this is, for the rest of my life?"

"Yes," she said, sadly but with resolve.

"Do you think we could have a decent marriage under such circumstances?" I then asked.

"I would choose to do all I could to make it not just good, but wonderful," she readily answered, "because I have waited for you a long time, and I know how rare and precious our opportunity to love would be. I would treasure your presence and companionship every day. I would hope you would choose to do the same for me. That is why I so firmly believe that love, true love, must be a choice. Because you would be stuck on the island where our village is, with me around, for the rest of your life. I could not condemn you to the hell of a marriage between us not working out any less than wonderfully. I would refuse to marry you, out of love for you, and have you do all this, if I saw that being our future together. As I said, this will take a very special man. I hope you can be that man, Lance. I truly do."

"You would be with me, helping me not miss the rest of the world?" I followed up.

"Yes," she assured. "Each and every day . . . and night, too. I would make those very good for you. I promise you that, all of it."

"But you said I get to see the village and the dragons before I commit?" I then asked. "Before I couldn't return?"

"Yes, you can," Roana pledged. "I will even bring you back here before I ask you to make your final decision, as your death would need to be faked here. You can still decline at that time when you return, and I would drug you and wish you well. You would wake up the next day as if it were your first morning here."

"So I'm guessing the memory drugs do not work to erase memories past a certain time span," I noted.

"No, our drugs erase only a few days," she replied. "And I would have to double the dose to achieve that."

"So I have to make up my mind fairly quickly once I'm there," I said.

"I wish it weren't so, but yes," Roana sighed. "That is why choice, and choosing commitment is essential . . . for both you and I."

I looked at her, and then looked down for a moment. My left arm was still draped loosely around Roana's shoulders, as she continued to look with concern at me.

"Could I just talk things out . . . out loud here, for a moment?" I asked.

"Yes, Lance, please do," she invited. "I will even give you time alone here if you want, right now."

"That won't be necessary," I sighed as I looked at her again. "I think I want to talk this out with you."

"Go ahead. I am listening," she assured.

"You're so patient, and supportive," I remarked, glancing at her.

"It is what I would want," she said, "if someone were asking me to do what I am asking of you."

"You're nervous, aren't you?" I noted.

"Terrified," she admitted with a nervous smile, still looking at me.

"You want me . . . and my love?" I asked.

"I am hoping we can come to share a wonderful love together," she said, "because we would both choose to."

"It is a matter of choice, isn't it?" I sighed. "And trust. Choosing to accept what another offers, and trusting they will do what they say they will."

"Yes," Roana simply replied.

"All I can do is to either choose to accept what you're offering, and asking of me," I mused, "or say I can't do it. Then you drug me and fly away on your dragon."

"That is about it," she confirmed.

I looked at Roana for a moment, into her eyes. She looked steadily back at me. I could see she was hoping, yet ready to accept what my decision would be.

"I can't think of another woman who could so calmly and so patiently sit with me like this while I considered what you're asking of me here," I said.

"I am glad you cannot," she replied with a slight smile.

I moved in tentatively to kiss her. We kissed each other with equal softness. I then kissed her harder. She was right with me, matching the intensity or the gentleness of each kiss I gave her. I then sighed as I held her close and looked past her, almost in stunned shock. Roana just put her arms around me as she touched the side of her head against mine, while she gently rubbed my back with her hands. She was doing everything she could to help me adjust to all this. I held her tighter, and she held me back tighter.

"You're not lying here . . . this isn't some kind of joke or prank, is it?" I asked, really hoping it was. "My guys back at NASA didn't get you to do this, did they?"

"Lance, I am telling you the absolute truth, I swear," she answered.

I buried my nose against her shoulder as I drew in a large breath. "Heck of a first date," I then sighed.

"I know, Lance," Roana sniffed. "I am so sorry."

We then held each other in that chair quietly a moment longer. "At least if I go," I finally mused, "I can still return."

"I swear you will come back here, no matter what," she said, her voice quivering.

"Roana . . . this is taking a toll on you," I noted with concern.

"Don't pull back . . . don't look at me right now," she asked. "Just make your decision; at least to go and look, or stay here."

Roana now seemed to be really on edge, but she was right. It was about trust, and choice.

"You know," I then said, "I might never find so equal and dedicated a companion anywhere else."

"Or someone who is willing to give you as much as she asks for," she added. "I hope to be able to prove that to you, somehow, Lance . . . if I could."

"Roana, you already have been," I said, feeling a decision settling with me now. At least I was ready to call her poker hand here, and see what the heck she had. "Let's get on with the next step. Show me the dragon. Show it all to me."

"Lance, you are giving me a wonderful gift, even now," she said with relief as she finally allowed me to look at her tearful eyes.

Seeing her face again, I could not help but begin to care for her and love her now. "I can appreciate how hard this is for you, too," I noted as I hugged her once more.

"Thank you," she gratefully whispered, "thank you so much. But how are you feeling?" she then asked with concern, as we emerged from our embrace in the armchair.

"Bewildered, scared, amazed, chilled," I sighed, looking down for a moment.

"I can understand," she assured. "Know I will be with you every step you take here. You can still say no later . . . and I will love you enough to let you go."

"Roana . . ." I softly admired.

"That's what it is now," she replied as she looked at me and touch her forehead against mine.

"You would choose to care for me, no matter how sick or whatever I got?" I felt compelled to double-check some more. I was jumping off a proverbial cliff here, after all.

"That would be easy," she replied as she sat up a little straighter in our embrace. "Yes, I would."

"You would be willing to make love . . . maybe not all the time, but not infrequently either?" I decided to test.

"That, I hope, would be a shared decision between us each time, based on mutual caring and respect for each other," she answered. "But your past wife . . . she refused you?"

"A lot," I admitted as I looked down.

"That is not right," Roana replied.

"Well," I said with relief, "checks that concern right off."

Roana just moved in and kissed me with warm understanding. I kissed her, feeling a smile settle on my lips. I gently moved my head back and just looked at her as we ended our kiss.

"My heart's on edge, Roana," I sighed as I looked at her. "You're warm, you're beautiful, I feel very good about you. But I'm nervous about going into this."

"I understand," she replied. "All we are doing next is seeing life there, and what it might be like with me. All you have to do once we are there is feel what is right for you, what kind of life you want. 'Us' will come if it's meant to be. I even have to tell myself that. Right now, Lance, I just want to give you the gift of exploring something I think is wonderful, and seeing if it is right for you."

"That sounds very fair," I had to admit. "But just know that marriage, with so little time to really feel things out and decide—days instead of even months . . ." I then sighed with some reservation, even distress.

"It is alright," she soothingly answered. "But, yes, that is what it would be for us. In New Berk though, we have come to call it 'mating'. I will explain the difference later."

"It does sound more fun than marriage," I smiled.

"I think so," she replied smiling as well. "But there are some ways we use to feel and basically know what is right for us. I will share those with you, too. There is plenty of fun in our life there though. You can even learn to fly with the dragons if you want to," she offered. "They would help."

"They're intelligent? Like Toothless was?" I wondered.

"Yes," she replied. "Just as Toothless and his family became, the dragons are equals with us. Treasured friends, and even family, as my 'ride' is. I will call him now, if you are ready."

"I guess so," I sighed as we both now stood up from the chair and stretched. "But how long is the flight?" I then asked.

"Several hours to the north, by dragon anyway," she smiled. "We will get there before dawn, and you and I, and the dragon, can sleep."

"You'd sleep . . . w-with me?" I stammered somewhat. "Before marriage?"

"We'll probably be too tired to do anything," she smiled, "but yes, if you want. That might help ease your transition and acceptance of the change you are confronting."

"Roana," I said, stopping her before she did whatever she was going to in calling whatever it was. A dragon? I still couldn't quite believe it. "You've changed my whole world," I continued, "my whole life today, and tonight. I know and believe you are good to me—that you want nothing but the best for me. But, it's just a lot to accept."

"I know, Lance," Roana empathized. "Between the two of us, you have the much harder path here than I do. I am just going home, but you are going someplace entirely new, and possibly giving up most everything you have ever known. It would be my solemn obligation, and pleasure, to do every last thing I could to make it the best home you could want there. I know that may be hard for you to believe . . ."

"I have seen you already, when you make up your mind, Roana," I admired. "What you say, you certainly seem to do."

"I am pleased you see that in me," she said as she drew close to me.

"Careful," I warmly hinted, feeling just a little primal Viking in me now, "I might just want to bed you before our flight."

"I would not refuse you," she said openly. "I give you the choice, willingly."

"You're kidding," I said, doing another double-take.

"I do not kid about such things," she assured. "I never will. I want you to trust me, totally . . . to have faith in me, totally. That starts right now. Take me if you want, Lance. I am yours."

"Wait a minute," I hesitated. "You have that much faith in me? That I won't just take advantage of you?"

"That you even ask the question confirms that I should," she smiled, "and I do. Besides, I know how to take care of and protect myself. You do not want to mess with my 'bad side' as they say in America."

"And you've never said this to anyone else?" I still felt compelled to ask. "Forgive me for saying so, but this all just seems a little too easy now."

"Well," she hesitantly smiled, "I've been attracted to others at times, and like you, I've learned a hard lesson or two about love as well. It has shaped my views and beliefs on it now. My people support marriage, and prize commitment, but we also allow for exploration as well, if that answers your question. I do not do this every day. But this is not exactly the first time I have allowed it."

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked that," I now regretted.

"It is alright," she assured, laying a hand to my face. "I promised no secrets between us tonight, and I mean that. I will talk about and share most anything you want now . . . anything at all."

"What do you want, Roana?" I asked, still not quite ready for such an amazing offer.

"What do I want?" she repeated, glancing off to the side with a nervous smile before looking at me again. "I want to show you my world, Lance. That is what I want more than anything right now. Making love here, it would be a distraction."

"Alright," I accepted with a smile. "Let's go. Show me your world, Roana."

"Lance . . . thank you," she tearfully accepted, giving me a tight hug, before turning towards the forested cliffs and crags beyond my cabin and issuing a quick, sharp whistle with her fingers.

Suddenly, I heard a gentle whooshing sound approaching . . . a whooshing sound I began realizing I had heard before at times during my stay here. A black mass began to blot out more and more of the stars now.

"Wh-What's going on?" I began to stammer as I looked up to see the mass descend closer and closer from the nighttime sky.

"It's alright," Roana calmly reassured beside me. That this seemed perfectly normal to her really made me wonder now as I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye.

Eventually that black mass landed in front of her and I on its four legs, and folded its wings with a soft grunt.

"Oh. My. God . . . a-a Night Fury," I gasped in recognition from the journal's descriptions as my jaw dropped, "a real Night Fury. It's . . . It's really here."

"Lance, this is Rökkr," she now introduced. "Rökkr, this is Lance Hyse, a son of Hiccup and Astrid."

"A pleasure . . ." I absent-mindedly said, still in shock.

"It is alright," Roana assured beside me. "He won't hurt you."

"It's not that," I hesitated in amazement. "It's that he exists."

"Now do you see our problems?" she asked me. "Even the threats to his life, and the lives of the other dragons we protect?"

"Yeah, I do," I sighed, still staring at the dragon, as it just looked openly back at me.

"Everything is okay," Roana reassured me again as she gently put an arm around my back.

"Aaaaahhh!" I exclaimed as I briefly jumped in surprise at her renewed touch behind me. I was that on edge now.

"Shhhhhh . . ." she gently soothed as she rubbed my back with one hand. "Easy . . . it's alright."

"He . . . He's named the Old Norse for 'Shadow'," I tentatively recognized, trying to focus on something relatively trivial now.

"Yes," Roana praised to me. "Very good."

Rökkr then bowed his head to me with a grunt.

"He is honouring you," she said, explaining his gesture. "Hiccup is a 'revered one' to dragons, especially to Night Furies. As a son of his, they will revere you, too. You should earn their respect on your own as well, but I will help you with that. Just solving the brittle egg problem of their females should make you a 'revered one' in your own right though."

"I'll need a lab though, and equipment," I cautioned, still adjusting to the reality of all this.

"We have something of a lab now in the village," Roana answered. "We have limited electricity by choice, and the need to remain hidden, but your needs will have priority. Shall we go though? I can explain much on the way."

"Fly there, to your village . . . on him?" I double-checked.

"Yes," she affirmed. "It is safe. Rökkr and I will allow nothing to happen to you. I swear."

"Roana . . ." I sighed.

"I know what you must be feeling and thinking, Lance," she empathized. "If you cannot do this—I will accept that, I promise."

"I . . . I have a fear of heights and falling," I admitted reluctantly, looking down again, "which is why I never volunteered to become an astronaut, even a mission specialist as they've been recruiting for the new Space Shuttle program. I couldn't even take the window seat I was originally assigned on the plane here to Oslo. I always fly aisle and just bury my nose in a book or magazine."

"Lance, do you want to forget about this then?" she asked as she now produced a syringe from within her leather skirt.

"That's real, too," I observed nervously.

"Yes," she said. "It is all real."

I looked at her and the dragon, as they both looked at me. I had never been so scared in my life. But yet, something called to me among them though. Something I wanted to explore.

"Roana . . . I'll do this," I decided, looking down again and taking a deep breath. "Let's go, before I can change my mind. But, don't forget your vest," I then said to distract even myself as I picked up Roana's vest off one of the patio table chairs and offered it back to her.

She smiled as she tucked the syringe away inside her skirt again and came close, kissing me once more. "Lance, I will keep you safe, I promise," she assured as she gently put her arms around me. "You sure you want to do this?" she asked again however.

"I would be regretting this the rest of my life if I didn't. Or at least until you drugged me," I nervously replied as I glanced between her and the dragon. "I want to do this, Roana. L-Let . . . I'll get a jacket."

"You don't need to get a jacket, Lance," she assured with another kiss and smile. "Rökkr carries a satchel behind the saddle here. I have flying jackets for each of us . . . natural sheepskin, insulated on the inside, water-repellent on the outside," she said as she then parted from me to walk over and reach into it, offering one to me.

"At least these Viking garments have sleeves," I noted as I examined the light brown jacket before putting it on, "even buttons, and a hood."

"We have had a thousand years to improve on a few things," Roana smiled. "Plus we have been learning from the world around us."

Dressed in a Berker flying jacket now, I just quickly picked up the journal and put it on the kitchenette counter inside the cabin, turned out the lights and closed the door.

"Just step on behind me here," Roana then invited as she easily mounted the Night Fury's saddle.

"I cannot believe I'm doing this," I sighed as I now stepped up into the saddle of an actual Night Fury, as the dragon kept an eye on me.

"There is nothing like flying by dragon, especially on Night Furies," she enthused while I seated myself on the saddle behind her. "You ready? Just hang onto me tight here. These Furies really tend to launch off the ground."

"Okay," I sighed. Both the dark brown leather saddle and the dragon's black neck underneath it were wide, but for some reason I felt like I was perched atop the narrowest of balance beams. Plus I was gonna be riding this thing for hours to the north, who knows how high in the air. I was now almost ready to be shot with those drugs instead, but I managed to keep myself silent.

"You better hang onto me tighter," Roana encouraged with a smile, "as tight as you can. At least your first time here."

"How's this?" I said as I very firmly wrapped my arms around her torso.

"Better," she smiled. "A kiss . . . for luck?" she invited, as she turned her head as she pulled back her hood for a moment.

I compliantly kissed her, firmly . . . not knowing what to expect, before she faced forward again in front of me.

"Rökkr . . . home please," Roana then asked the dragon in English, which surprised me a little.

But before I could ask a question about that, we were suddenly vaulted off into the night sky. I held onto her even tighter as I felt the Night Fury propel us all upwards with powerful beats of his massive black wings, and gyrations of the rest of his body. We then banked and turned along the coast, proceeding north.

"How are you doing back there?" Roana asked as we settled into something of a cruising mode now.

"O-O-Okay . . ." I could barely get out. I was flying way too high up in the air, on a beast the rest of the world said didn't exist, or was at least menacing in ancient times. What else could I say?

"Rökkr knows the way home," she assured, seeming to stretch and relax a little herself. "We are just along for the ride now."

I looked down at the ocean and coastline that was now far below the leading edge of Rökkr's wing. I was basically petrified.

"Th-There's nothing to strap me in here . . . is there?" I stammered.

"Oh, sorry," she apologized. "There is a saddle strap either right behind you against the satchel, or under you. Rökkr is flying steady here, just take your arms off me for a second and buckle the strap around your waist. Sorry, I am not used to carrying passengers. It's been just me and Rökkr."

"Where . . . Where does he wait all day?" I managed to ask as I groped around me for the strap with one hand at a time while keeping the other arm firmly wrapped around Roana.

"He knows to hide in the woods, in a small craggy hollow right near your cabin actually," she noted. "My uncle provides him with a big basket of fish there to keep him happy.

"And he never gets found by other guests or strangers?" I asked as I finally felt the strap underneath me.

"We mostly just visit at night," Roana answered. "We arrange the dates in advance, then my uncle keeps Cabin Eight empty so Rökkr can just hang out on the bluff there. But when he has to hide, his hiding place is some distance behind a fence dating from World War II that we moved and set up near there. The gate is kept locked by my uncle, and no visitor can get over or around it."

"There," I sighed as I synched the strap around my waist, feeling a little better at being at least somewhat secured, as I put my arms around Roana again. At that point, I would have still preferred a heated jetliner cabin with a reclining seat. But I now began to wonder if I would ever see that again.

"Why is your uncle and his inn so far south of your village?" I then asked to distract myself.

"His main job is to keep an eye on Old Berk for us, even though he is getting somewhat old for that now," she replied. "I do not often ask Rökkr to fly this far for me though, but he is willing to when I do."

"But wait, if you folks are trying to keep dragons and your village a secret, why does your uncle have a dragon-themed inn? Even with things about Berk?" I queried.

"How better to hide secrets than in plain sight?" she responded. "Just having pictures and lore of dragons all over the place . . . if people catch a glimpse of us, they figure it is just the power of suggestion from what they have seen in the inn already. They are more likely to dismiss us that way. It also conditions them to be more accepting of dragons if they do see us. Others of us run a dragon-themed restaurant, even a gift shop, fairly close to our village on the outside. Think about it in your own work . . . how better to get people to accept the idea of alien life from other worlds than to have movies, attractions, even inns focused on it?"

"You have a point there," I had to admit.

"Lance?" she then asked quietly as we flew.

"What, Roana?" I responded.

"I cannot tell you what this is meaning to me," she said, almost sniffling.

"Well, I'm glad to do it for you . . . even if I'm still a little petrified up here," I said, uncertain of how to take what she was saying, while remembering that I was just a leather strap and a dragon's neck away from a very long fall.

"Just focus on me, okay?" she suggested. "Even think about just taking care of me in the sky here."

"How?" I asked.

"I have absolutely no idea," she confessed with a laugh. "I have known dragon riding since I was a child. I am as comfortable here on Rökkr's neck as I am inside my home. But I know that this is new to you, and that you are afraid. I wish I could relieve that fear in you, Lance. Even take it away somehow."

"Thank you, Roana," I said, almost charmed by her wish for me.

"I have one idea though," she suggested pleasantly.

"What's that?" I tried to smile as well as I just focused on her.

"Well, I forgot gloves for you," she replied as she now took a pair of leather gloves out of her jacket for herself. "So here," she offered as she undid a couple of buttons on her jacket around her torso, "why don't you just tuck your hands in here and keep them warm against me? That ought to keep you nicely distracted, as a guy."

"Roana," I smiled in objection. "Despite my wild question or whim earlier on the ground, I like to think of myself as something of a gentleman. Besides, you've still got a tunic on underneath, secured by a thick leather belt no less."

"You're welcome to try working around all that, if you like," she suggested. "Figuring it out ought to keep you busy."

I just laughed as I tucked my hands inside her partly unbuttoned jacket and snuggled close around her. Her tunic and the inside of her jacket were nicely warm to my now chilled hands. Roana herself was already seeming to be a warm haven to me in the midst of a cold that had been my life lately. "Thank you," I finally said as I allowed myself to begin relaxing against her . . . although I wasn't quite prepared to admit just how much, and for what, I was becoming grateful to her over.

"Thank you, too, Lance," she sniffed in reply.

"You okay?" I gently asked, feeling a little concerned about the sniffling I was hearing from her.

"Lance, I am not okay," she seemed to reply tearfully, although I could not see her face, shielded as it was by the hood of her flying jacket. "I am wonderful . . . because you're with me, just right here, exploring, considering all this with me. Even braving your fears, for me."

She dropped her head now within her hood, seeming to try and recompose herself. I could tell something was going on inside her, and I sensed it was about me.

"You got some butterflies in your stomach that my hands could soothe right now?" I offered. "At least they're in the right place."

Roana then laughed amid the tears she was trying to conceal from me as she patted one of my hands underneath her jacket. She couldn't say a thing more to me right then. She just continued to silently pat and rub that hand of mine through the leather and fleece of her jacket. I didn't press her for a further answer, instead deciding to relax against her, even laying my head against her head and shoulder. Flying with Roana, on a dragon? It didn't seem so bad now.

Well, I had wanted something different during this vacation. Now, here it was.


	7. Chapter 7

I was more than a little chilled and sleepy when I felt us descending over a fog-shrouded land mass a few hours later. It was a moonless night now. The stars were out shining brightly, but most everything below us was just dark and almost featureless. The dragon seemed to know where he was aiming us though.

"Lance . . . Lance? We're almost there," I now heard.

"Sorry, I must have nodded off a little," I realized as I now stirred and fully roused myself. I almost withdrew my hands and was about to take a stretch, before I remembered where I was and decided to keep my arms securely around Roana instead, with my hands nicely warm underneath her jacket around her tunic-clothed waist. "I'm just glad I didn't fall off in my sleep here," I yawned.

"The strap would have held you, or Rökkr would have caught you," she assured. "Most dragons are good at mid-air rescues. But are you getting more comfortable with this?"

"A little more," I admitted, still trying to wake myself up. "How long will we have here until we go back?" I then asked.

"Let us decide that after we rest a while here," Roana encouraged. "Hang onto me tighter though, Rökkr is about to land us at the house he and I share."

"You share your house with a dragon?" I asked.

"Hiccup and Astrid came to, remember?" she reminded.

"Oh yeah, I keep forgetting," I yawned again. "That book is brought to life here."

We descended between what seemed to be a couple ridges or ranges of dark mountains. I could barely see one or two fires or torches below and in front of us that the dragon appeared to be aiming for. I occasionally sensed things moving in the air around us, even heard gentle whooshes in the distance. They were probably other dragons, but I couldn't be sure. Tall mounds or boulders within what was now a valley became bigger as we continued to descend. But as Rökkr levelled off and braked somewhat as we flew down among them, I could just make out that these mounds were houses with rounded roofs covered in grass or moss. This place was dark and mysterious, but already it was intriguing me like nothing else ever had. I was entering a hidden world now. Everything was silent around us as we landed on the grass in front of one house with a thud and a bounce with Rökkr taking a step or two as he touched the ground. A gently flaming torch was illuminating the house's porch and front door.

"I'm going to have to get used to that," I said, feeling a little jarred from the landing as Rökkr retracted his wings on either side of me.

"You are tired," Roana invited as she dismounted ahead of me. "Come, shall we go to bed?"

"Yeah," I accepted as she now helped me off the dragon. It all just seemed surreal to me, like I had stepped right into the journal.

"Come inside," she invited putting an arm supportively around me as we walked up the steps to her house and she opened a large, wooden door.

The house was almost just like the ones described in Hiccup's journal . . . tall, curved ceilings and thick wooden beams, ornamented with carvings. A cooking fire gently lit up and warmed the interior. The only modern improvement seemed to be a metal funnel and stovepipe above the fire that caught and channelled the smoke from the fire out of the house.

"Roana . . ." I sighed as I looked around.

"You like it?" she asked with a smile.

"I do," I decided.

"Would you like to relax with a nightcap, a bath, or a massage before bed?" she offered.

"Roana, you don't have to do all this," I cautioned as I looked at her. She seemed to now be as tired as I was.

"I want to," she assured, as she took off her flying jacket. "Here, let me relieve you of your coat. Then I just have to give Rökkr a little something and take his saddle off of him for the night."

I took off my jacket and gave it to her, and then followed her over to the cooking area.

"Thank goodness my neighbours came and made this fire for us," she appreciated as she took a bucket and then dipped it into a simmering cauldron.

I was impressed by such neighbourliness. "Wait . . . Mead Tea," I then recognized from the journal descriptions.

"As with most all Night Furies and other dragons since Hiccup and Astrid's time, it is a favourite with Rökkr . . . his nightcap," Roana confirmed. "He also likes at least a few fish when he comes home, especially after a long flight like this," she added as she walked over and reached through what looked like a cupboard door in the wall of the house for a few raw fish, before putting them on a metal tray.

"Here, I'll carry the tray of fish," I offered, relieving Roana of that. "So it's a symbiotic relationship, between you and the dragons?" I then asked as I followed her over to where the Night Fury was already laying himself down to rest.

"Yes," she confirmed, "we, human and dragon, both depend on each other in this society, and we both benefit. We share everything. But we all know why we are here . . . to preserve this way of life, and allow the dragons to live well now, and thrive for the future."

"Here you go, Rökkr," I said as I laid down the tray of fish beside Roana's bucket of tea. "Thank you for the flight," I marvelled. "Can he understand me? I mean since you probably speak Old or New Norse here."

"Because of my time at WSU, he is the only dragon here who understands English," she smiled as she unfastened and removed Rökkr's saddle from him. "I bonded with him when I came back, and I wanted to keep my English up, so I taught him to understand it. He can understand everything we say. He just cannot speak English, or our local Norse, as he cannot shape his lips to modify sounds as we do. What is that, Rökkr?"

The dragon grunted again as he looked at me after eating a fish.

"He says, 'It was an honour to fly you, Revered One,'" she translated. "He will start calling you by your name in time. We just do not have any other 'Lances' here, so he will have to come up with an equivalent grunt in Night Fury dialect for you."

"How long would it take me to learn his language?" I asked, looking at him.

"Perhaps most of a lifetime, as you have not been exposed to it from birth," Roana answered as she then gave Rökkr some pleasurable scratching and rubbing as a reward after his long flight, while I now stood up and watched them both. "The distinctions among the grunts and murmurs, and the ways they use them, can be difficult to pick up. Even after almost a thousand years with them, neither we nor they have written their dialects down, although they can write in ours with brushes held in their mouths. But it would be difficult to figure out how to write or spell out their grunts and murmurs in either Norse runes or Roman letters. They just sound so much alike most of the time, and even a slight change in their order can completely change the meaning of what is being said. So dragon dialects have remained oral ones. But together, we have written some of their thoughts, stories and lore in our Norse language. Most any of our human languages are much easier for them to come to understand though, because our consonants and vowels are much more distinct. As you probably deduced from what you have already read in the journal, Hiccup and Astrid never learned to understand or speak Night Fury or other dragon dialects themselves, only their children did. That did not diminish their bond with them however, nor would it with you."

"There, he is set for bed now," she noted with satisfaction as she turned to me. "So what would you like?"

"I don't know here," I confessed to her with a smile.

"Would you like me to remind you of the choices?" she smiled in turn.

We both laughed.

"No," I assured with a gentle smile. "Roana, I know what we talked about maybe doing earlier. But I am on a knife's edge between committing to all this, and not being able to; and I want to be fair, and kind, to you. Earlier this evening . . . well, it just didn't seem to be as important, and serious, as it does to me now. I'm also pretty tired."

"Of course," she agreed as she moved closer to me. "But you wouldn't like anything? Not even a massage to help you settle in?"

"I don't know," I hesitated as I tentatively embraced her. "But I have to admit, you do feel good though."

"Whatever you would like," she offered as she smiled while gently extending her arms around me as well. "Anything."

"But the dragon," I hesitated, "he wouldn't mind?"

"If you remember the journal," she reminded me, "we helped them rediscover and appreciate romantic love. They have come to revere it, and the sharing of it, as a sacred gift. I do, too. Rökkr has even told me he wants to see me mated, and loved."

"Mated, rather than married," I remarked. "You had mentioned this before. What's the difference?"

"It has a more primal, total meaning for us," Roana noted. "The dragons have influenced it, almost given it to us. People can marry just holding hands, sometimes at arm's length from each other. But here, when we mate, we mate body and soul, our entire selves. Marriages can be broken. But once you mate with someone the way we do, the way I honestly want to, you exchange something with them . . . spiritually to me, as well as physically. Something you just cannot take back, because you choose not to. You are their mate, and they yours. There is an awareness between the two of you, always."

"So, by what you just said, isn't that what I still am to my ex-wife then?" I now wondered with some discomfort.

"Let me ask you a question," Roana posed. "Do not think about it, just answer, right away. Did you marry or really mate with your ex-wife?"

"I married her," I instinctively answered. "She and I had been in a relationship for two years already. It was convenience and familiarity as much as anything else."

"Did you mate with her?" she reiterated.

"We had sex," I said flatly, looking away. "It was release . . . for both her, and me. There was nothing spiritual. She never 'gave' her whole self to me, and really, I never did either, not like you talk about. I would have known that, or at least felt it . . . I think."

"I have had sex, too," Roana said. "A couple of times, only we call it 'exploring' here as I have said, and it is permitted. That is what we could share tonight, if you like."

"So we wouldn't mate?" I wondered.

"It's difficult to describe to an outsider," she sighed. "But to us here, even to me, mating is sacred. Not just for what those who mate do on the outside together in bed—but for what they feel as they do it, or really even well before then, on the inside. It is basically the most sacred choice and awareness any of us can ever know. And it is not just sacred with some outside deity or doctrine, but between the beings we cannot lie to . . . myself and yourself. You and I can explore tonight, but we do not decide to mate until we know together that we will not break it, which is a choice to love . . . one that becomes, and sustains, the feeling of love. It is the difference between what swans share versus what ducks do together."

"Well, how does it happen here then?" I asked.

"However the two partners involved want it to," Roana answered. "Among dragons, when a dragon decides they have found the right mate, one just looks at the other and basically grunts, 'You mate with me for life?' The other usually but not always grunts 'yes', and they just decide they are committed to loving each other, and to each other's wellbeing, after that . . . all without ceremony, unless their human friends or family insist on it. Just as with humans though, not all dragons do that. But committed dragon couples are very loving, and once committed, they never divorce. They adapt, blend, and above all, accept who each other is. If they cannot, they don't commit.

"We humans make a bit more of a celebration out of it though," she continued, changing tone somewhat. "But since we don't have priests or churches here, which Vikings never had anyway during their era, there is no religious intermediary saying, 'Wait, we have to approve or bless you before you do that, or can proclaim yourselves mated.' Swans and other beings who mate for life have never needed that. Chiefs or clan patriarchs once arranged marriages and performed loose marriage rituals or proclamations in ancient Viking times. But Hiccup and Astrid somewhat broke that mould, and both women and men have largely been choosing their own mates and committing how they have wanted to ever since here. There is usually a feast involved, sometimes two . . . a public one and a private one. Some couples choose to exchange vows, as well as prayers to Spirit, the gods or even ancestors. But rings are usually involved somewhere in it all."

"You said dragons never divorce," I noted, "but humans never divorce here either?"

"Well, very rarely," she qualified, "a human mating can still not work out. The partners just do not have the discipline within themselves for the give and take that makes it all work, they may have decided or agreed too quickly, or they just choose differently. But they harbour no ill will here. We all value the freedom and gift that choice is. Freedom is our one founding philosophy, the reason this village was established . . . the freedom to live, believe, choose, and do as we want—both as a society, and as individuals. The freedom to love, or not love, is part of that. But the freedom of choice, and of commitment, are the most important to us . . . because otherwise, the dragons would not exist, and we would not exist as we are. All the humans here know they could live different lives on the outside, but we each have chosen this life with the dragons, and are glad, even proud, that we have."

"It is a powerful choice here," I admitted. "But what happens if two people do decide to separate?"

"If one partner does not love the other anymore," she continued, "or as they thought they did, the other partner may naturally try a little to keep their couple together. But we do not force another to remain with us. There are plenty of people here who will help separated persons to move on with life. But it just does not happen all that much. Those who want to really commit and enjoy the deepest love imaginable do so . . . for life. That is what I want. Those who do not share that, who just want to enjoy pleasure, or sometimes breed to simply experience the joy of children, can. They do that on the outside anyway. But since we are close here, there is nothing to fight over in break-ups . . . people just release each other in love. And children do not need money here to be supported. Both parents are usually still around to help and raise them anyway, unless one moves to the outside, which can happen. But there are some interesting hybrid or blended families here, besides the human/dragon ones like mine."

"That all makes sense," I admitted, "a lot of sense. But if coming together and breaking up is so easy and painless, what keeps a couple together then?"

"Choice," Roana readily answered as she then took and held up my hand in hers. "A choice to know something deeper in life, the only way you can . . . with someone else. It is also a choice to honestly care for and love someone, which to me is a wonderful thing all by itself. There can be a warm, familiar comfort to be found there over time. The trick though is finding someone else who wants to make the same choice you do, and who feels right. It is something I have been seeking for some time now."

She looked at me with a tear in her eye for a moment again, as she self-consciously lowered my hand and let it go. It dawned on me this time that she had just gently shared a wish with me, her heartfelt wish. I looked with compassion back at her. I moved to embrace her again, just feeling a desire to.

"Roana," I said gently, "this is why I can't sleep with you tonight now. This isn't just a date or a fling anymore. It's different. It's something that I either want to take all the way with you, or leave you as a pure friend in my heart . . . not that I'd be allowed to remember you for long like that, which pains me, actually."

"It would pain me, too," she said. "But Lance, thank you," she then whispered softly. "Sorry I am whispering, but I just do not want to screw this up now," she sniffed. "I wanted to let you know though, somehow."

I held her tighter. "Thanks for being honest with me," I whispered back. "I don't think I want to screw this up now, either."

We both chuckled as we held each other close for a quiet moment. Roana then pulled her head back and just gazed at me deeply.

"What?" I finally had to ask.

"I would screw things up so badly right now if I told you," she sighed, shaking her head.

"How do you know?" I invited.

"I feel it would if I did," she said without elaborating further. Roana now moved her arms up around my neck and held me tightly. I held her back just as tightly.

"But I have a choice to make here," I cautioned, reminding both her and myself why I had come.

"Not tonight, alright?" she assured as she held me.

"The choice . . . all this, and you . . . it's not leaving me alone here now though," I sighed. "You and a life here are now all blending together. I know it won't take me two years—if it feels like it needs to, as you suggested earlier today, the answer is 'no'. But, for the first time, I feel open, honest . . . with even myself. You're giving that to me, Roana. You really are."

"I am glad," she replied quietly.

I just allowed myself to look into her eyes for a moment as she gently gazed at me. I then had to look away though. I felt I would have lost myself had I looked at her any longer.

"It is alright, Lance," she said.

I closed my eyes, feeling almost overwhelmed by what she was giving me . . . the understanding, her support, her patience. I needed that right now. But I realized that accepting all that from her was only drawing me closer to her. I didn't know whether Roana's love felt more like a doorway to something new and wonderful, or a quicksand that would engulf me.

When I opened my eyes a moment later, our arms were still around each other, and she was looking at me again.

"Why don't you tell me what is in your heart," she suggested.

"Turmoil," I replied.

She just held me closer and rubbed my back. I couldn't help but hold her closer, too.

"Roana," I said softly. "I am so close to wanting to be with you."

She said nothing as she continued to hold me and stroke my back.

"You know how to deal with frightened, skittish animals, don't you?" I said as I pressed the side of my face tightly against hers.

"You are not an animal," she simply replied.

"How long are you going to hold me like this?" I wondered as I now stared off past her.

"How long do you want to be held?" she answered.

"The longer I hold you, the longer I'm held by you, the more I love you," I admitted. "But the more I feel I lose myself."

"And you do not know if you are ready to give that self up," she noted in our embrace as she looked past me as well.

"That's it," I agreed. "That is exactly it."

"Well," she said looking at me once more, "you are here to try all this, and me, on. See if it fits, feels right. So, how am I feeling so far?"

"Good," I had to admit. "Almost dangerously good."

"That is the best kind of good," she smiled.

Both of us silently moved close again and held each other for what seemed like the longest time. Roana eventually seemed to shift a little, settling against me.

"I'm sorry, are you going to sleep?" I asked.

"You are restful to me," she said. "Your presence, your embrace . . . they are soothing."

"I don't want us to fall over here," I cautioned.

"You are right," she replied now stirring herself and drawing back from me a little.

"I'm sorry," I apologized. "I didn't want to ruin our moment."

"Well, it doesn't have to end," she suggested.

I drew Roana back to me. She didn't resist, even as I gently brought my lips to hers. She willingly kissed me as I began kissing her. It became a harmony, even a shared silent, physical music between us. We just kissed and embraced and caressed more and more. I reached a hand under her tunic and felt the skin of her lower back, as she grabbed the tail of my shirt, lifting it up so she could rub her hand on my lower back as well. I loved the sensations. I began surrendering to them, even craving them.

But it wasn't right.

"Roana . . . we'd better stop," I gently said amid our kisses, forcing myself back from crossing to a place, a place of commitment with her, that I just wasn't ready to yet, the way I knew she wanted me to. "I can't explore with you like this," I said as I dropped my head. "I just can't. For me, it's either commitment, or it has to be nothing. You're already too special to me for anything less than that."

"I understand," she said as we ended our kissing. "But Lance . . ."

"What, Roana?" I asked.

She looked away and shook her head. "I cannot say anything further," she sighed, before looking at me again. I could see her longing for me in her eyes. I allowed my own gaze into her eyes to linger. If we had kissed again, neither of us would have been able to stop ourselves.

"Come," she then invited, now looking away, "you take the bed tonight. I will sleep beside Rökkr, as I normally do."

"Oh yeah," I remembered, as I recovered myself as well, "as described in the journal."

"Rökkr is very kind, and very loving to me," she said as she looked at him dozing now. "He and I are not mates, but we are committed to each other, as much as most any dragon and human can ever be. So you were right a while ago, I do have a 'guy' in my life. But he is no threat to you and I, and if you chose, you would enter into the family bond I share with him, too."

"Roana," I said hesitantly, "I don't want to torture you, or us. But I don't want to be apart from you tonight, or almost this morning now. With all this," I sighed, "all the decisions or choices I have to make here, I don't even know if I'll sleep all that well."

"Would you like a massage anyway?" Roana offered with a smile. "No strings, no sex, no mating, no test . . . just an honest gift, from me to you. One that will allow you to relax, maybe find peace with everything here, and discover what is really right for you."

"Roana, you're tired," I sighed with empathy.

"Can I tell you something else dangerous?" she asked.

"Alright," I nodded with a gentle smile.

"I wanted to give you a gift of welcome, amid all this that I know is very overwhelming to you," she said. "It was about to be a gift of exploring sexual pleasure with me. But I honour the choice you just made. It feels even better than sex."

We both laughed.

"Roana, you are dangerously, even perilously important to me now," I assured as we continued to loosely hold each other. "We both know I maybe have a day or so here, to make up my mind. For me now, to make love with you would be to mate with you, bond with you. I have to make sure within me that it's a promise, and a choice, I can keep . . . for your sake. I will not do to you what has been done to me."

"That is a gift," she tearfully marvelled as she embraced me tightly again. "Ohh that is such a gift from you." She then just looked at me a little differently, somehow more deeply than she had been before.

"What is it?" I dared to ask.

"I cannot tell you," she said once again, almost tearfully smiling.

"You want to though," I sensed. "So why not tell me."

"To tell you," she replied, taking a breath, " . . . would be to ruin your freedom of choice here. All I want now," she continued as she placed a hand over my heart, "is for you to peacefully and deliberately make the right choice, for you and who you want to be."

"Roana . . . that is love," I quietly noted.

She just quietly nodded as she continued to look into my eyes.

"You've told me anyway just now," I said as I looked at her. "You've been telling me one way or another ever since we walked in here, haven't you?"

Roana just tearfully nodded to me again.

I just closed my eyes and held her tighter once more, knowing what her nod meant. She had given me a gift . . . the kind of recognition and decision within herself that each of us really only gives once in our lives, if we're lucky enough to find someone so special to give it to at all. I wasn't sure if I was worthy of what she had decided to give me.

"My choice is harder, at least one alternative is," I finally dared to say.

"I am sorry, Lance," she sniffed as she embraced me again and buried her head against my shoulder. "But I will love you now, whether you stay or go back."

I cringed inside as she said that.

"I want you to know I am at peace with this," she continued, "whatever you decide. I want you to have freedom. I so want that for you now."

"Oh man, Roana," I said, closing my eyes even tighter as I held her. "That really messes me up."

"I know, I know," she said, almost in frustration. "When we wake up to the day, let us both take a step back, clear our heads and hearts, and try and really talk this thing out, okay?"

"We both know it won't be that easy," I warned.

"Would you allow me to apologise to you then?" she asked.

"For what?" I asked.

"Do I have to say it between us?" she replied.

"No," I responded. "But how?"

"I would like to give you that massage," she said. "No sex, strings or obligations as I said. But I would just like to give you something that no one else can, quite like I want to. Even your accepting this would be a gift to me."

"Would you let me give you a massage, too then?" I gently countered.

"No," she firmly replied. "Not tonight. Massages are best given just one per night."

"We're staying two nights then, okay?" I requested.

"Alright," she accepted with a smile, "yes, we can. Rökkr deserves a rest between these long flights anyway. But here," she then surprised me, "I have a night tunic and pants for you, over there on the chair."

"Roana . . . thank you," I sighed with gratitude as I admired the very soft and short-sleeved dark blue tunic and white cloth pants. They were so new they looked like they had never even been touched.

"The tunic, it matches your blue eyes," she admired as she looked at both it and me. "I noticed them when I saw you for a moment in the inn's lobby, even though you would not look at me. I traded for it during our several days apart, hoping you would come to enjoy it."

"Roana . . ." I sighed again.

"I know," she replied, "it is too much."

I just had to hug her once more. "No, it's not," I assured.

Neither of us could say a word for a moment. Roana was skilfully weaving a web . . . one of real, even perfect, love. She was ensnaring me, drawing me in, more and more with each passing moment. I was fast becoming less and less interested in escaping it, or her. I realized that part of me, my old self and any thought of an independent life, was genuinely at risk of dying here.

"My nightdress is over behind the screen there," she continued, almost distracting me from my thoughts, as we gradually recovered ourselves yet again. "You can change here, and I there if you like, unless you want to switch, or you do not mind changing in the open."

"Roana, you are so beautiful to me," I sighed. "I think we'd better change separately, tonight anyway."

"A wise decision, for both of us," she agreed. "But leave your tunic off for the time being . . . if you want that massage."

As she went off and changed behind her screen, I quickly changed into the night pants and lay face down on what was obviously Roana's customary floor mattress next to a now sleeping Rökkr.

_I am next to a dragon,_ I silently thought to myself as I turned my head to look at him, _a real dragon._ I watched him breathe, almost trying to mentally dissect him and how his body worked as I did. I wanted to reach out and touch him again, but stopped myself from doing so. The surreal nature of it all was suddenly hitting me like a ton of bricks.

I resisted raising and turning my head to look at Roana though as I then heard her walk barefoot across the wooden floor back towards me. If I did, I knew I would lose my heart for sure, and I would not be able to resist taking her and utterly mating with her. That would have been all too easy. But Roana and I . . . we both deserved better than that.

She didn't say a word as I felt her kneel down around my legs. Her hands then touched my bare back, and I practically convulsed from her touch.

"Easy . . . easy . . ." she soothed as she laid her entire self down on my back and embraced me from behind. She even felt irresistibly beautiful.

"Roana," I said with tension in my voice. "This is harder for me than I thought it would be."

"Let me relax you and help make it easier," she softly whispered into my ear as she held me. "Just think about having this any night you wanted."

"Any night?" I asked.

"Any night," she confirmed as she rose up again, spread some kind of cream or oil into her hands, and began working what I can only describe as magic across my neck, shoulders, and back.

"Wait," I stopped her, rising up on my elbows and trying to look at least to the side some. "What about you? What do you want?"

"I would like it most any night, too," was all she would reply as her hands gently pressed me down onto the mattress again and went back to work on me.

Soon, I was living what could only be thought of as a fantasy . . . bedded down on a plush floor mattress beside a dragon, and being massaged by a beautiful Viking who was wearing something very soft, that I didn't dare look at. Roana was giving me both the deepest, most satisfying rubs I had ever known, and caresses so gentle that they practically floated me off the mattress. Her hands were creating what felt like a work of sensual art, with my back as her canvas.

When she saw I was almost lulled to sleep, Roana finally settled down between Rökkr and I as she drew a quilt over both her and myself. "Goodnight," she ever so softly whispered soothingly into my ear with a kiss, as she spooned behind me against my back, laying an arm around me.

I had never felt so loved and cared for in all my life, especially during my past married life. As Roana was doing here, my ex-wife had once pursued me, too. Truth be told, that parallel made me a little uncomfortable. But I drew comfort from the clear impression that Roana seemed so much wiser and more in tune with what love and life itself were, and could be.

"You want your tunic on?" she gently asked, holding me from behind in bed.

"No," I sighed pleasantly. "You can keep me warm."

I leaned back against Roana a little more under the quilt. She drew me in and snuggled me closer as well, silently rubbing my bare chest with her hands as she kissed my ear and cheek.

I was loved, dammit . . . really loved now! What the hell was wrong with me here? I shifted again from my inner agitation. Roana sensed it.

"Peace," she now whispered in my ear. "Be at peace, Lance. Do not struggle with your decision. Do not beat yourself up that you have not made it yet . . . or get frustrated that anything is standing in your way. Sleep. We have time, and the right things will happen."

"Your faith, your certainty," I quietly marvelled, "it's more than I've seen elsewhere, in anyone else."

"Thank you," I felt her smile.

"Roana, I love you," I said.

"I love you, too, Lance," she softly replied, "so very much."

"That, I can see," I assured.

"Sleep, my love," she encouraged as she continued nestling me. "All is right now. All is right . . ."

"I wanna give it all up for you . . ." I mumbled.

"Shhhhhhh . . ." she just soothed ever so softly as she gently rocked me. I closed my eyes as I drew her arms more tightly around me.

_What are the boundaries between love and freedom?_ I wondered as I savoured her embrace around me. _When is it worth giving up one to have the other?_ I began to think that maybe, just maybe, real freedom was found in accepting another's love.

I almost wanted to talk about this with Roana, but I could sense that she was now already asleep behind me, as was Rökkr behind her. I didn't want to disturb either of them, so I closed my eyes again and allowed Roana's soothing presence, her peace and love, to usher me off to sleep as well. As I ever so gently took one of her soft, warm hands into mine, I felt her fingers gently squeeze my fingers as she seemed to shift a little against me. Even in her sleep, she was responding to me . . . showing her incredible love to me.

Soon I was asleep as well, nestled in a heaven that was inviting me to stay.


	8. Chapter 8

_For Katielp2693, and everyone else who couldn't wait to see more of the modern dragons of New Berk, here is an extra or early chapter release._

_Enjoy,_

_Norwesterner_

* * *

><p>I awoke to some wonderful sounds and especially aromas. I rolled over and stretched.<p>

"Shhhh . . ." I heard as I felt a figure quickly kneel down beside me. "Wake up slowly here. I have some tea for you if you like."

"Roana . . ." I mumbled as I began to open my eyes. "W-Where's . . . the dragon?" I asked, sensing no large black mass next to me.

"He's outside, relaxing and enjoying himself in the sun," she assured. "It is just you and me this morning . . . well, close to noon now, actually."

"I'd better get up here," I decided, stretching again. "I have a lot to see, and mull over here."

"Don't mull too fast, or too hard," she gently encouraged.

"Roana . . . could we talk for a moment?" I requested. "Could you sit with me here, please?"

"Absolutely," she agreed. "Just let me take the cooking off the fire, and I will be right back."

"What are you making?" I inquired as I twisted around on the floor mattress.

"A full Berker brunch," she smiled. "Home-grown sheep sausage, eggs, bread . . . I'll make you French Toast if you like. I even have the syrup, specially imported from the inn. Uncle said you liked that. And I brought some melons back on a previous trip."

"Sounds like home," I smiled.

"We are not all that different here," she assured. "We do not have a few things, like coffee or chocolate . . . I will see if I can get you those at times though if you want them. But I can make you local teas that are just as satisfying—teas that can wake you up or soothe you down. We do have sugar through beets, some goat's milk and cheese, as well as mutton, lots of fish of course, and fresh fruits and vegetables in season. We store up what we can, and eat decently for the most part . . . just kind of the same things at times though, especially late in the winter. Brunch is ready if you want though. Would you like to eat now?"

"I'd like to talk first," I sighed.

"Of course," Roana agreed, setting the cooking aside to cool for a moment, before sitting down next to me on the floor mattress. "Here I am," she then assured.

"You're wearing an incredible nightdress," I admired as I took her hand as we both sat cross-legged on the floor mattress. Her nightgown was made of simple, white, but very soft cloth, held up by the narrowest of leather straps over her shoulders. In it, she looked like nothing less than Helen of Troy . . . a goddess. "I am so glad I didn't see this last night," I sighed, "or I wouldn't have been able to resist."

Roana smiled. "That is the problem now though for you," she said. "Resistance."

I looked down. What she said was true.

"Why do you resist that which is good, even wonderful?" she asked.

I shook my head and shrugged as I looked down. Without being able to put into words what I was now feeling, I turned, took her into my arms, and laid her down with me as I embraced her tightly. She was right with me, holding me closely as well.

"Roana . . . I'm scared," I finally said, unable to look into her eyes at the moment.

"That is why you are resisting?" she gently asked as she held me.

I silently nodded my head.

"I understand," Roana soothed. "It is alright. One day and night so far to weigh whether to choose a path, and a partner, for life. It is difficult."

"If I said yes," I wondered. "Maybe I should just say yes . . ."

"It is not yet time for you to," she gently advised.

"How do I know when it is?" I asked.

"You will not be scared," she assured. "Well, part of you still might be . . . but you will know. You just will."

I hugged Roana tightly. She just held me back with her quiet confidence. I now wanted what she had.

— — — — —

"This is a delicious brunch, Roana," I admired as I finished my plate a little later at a small, square table she had in the house, now wearing the blue tunic she had given me. "Thank you, so much."

"It is my pleasure," she replied, sitting next to me.

"How could I do any better than this?" I asked myself as much as her. "Really?"

"Hopefully, you couldn't," she agreed with a smile. "At least I am trying to make it that way."

"Don't try too hard yourself," I suggested. "Just be you, okay?"

"I am," she assured.

"So what do you do for a morning shower here?" I asked, looking around the house.

"We do not have mechanical or natural water pressure. Only wells and cisterns," Roana explained. "So we just take baths. I can give you what I heard called a 'camp shower' in college . . . warm water in a sheepskin bladder above you that you control. But the shower will be short, so you can only use it to wet and rinse."

"I'm not a systems engineer or plumber," I noted, "but I might want to work on that."

"People just go more casual and natural around here," she said. "We see each other every day. We accept each other the way we are, and do not need to keep up appearances so much. Your naturally wavy hair is kind of nice actually. I can brush it a little for you if you would like, but you should save the bath for this evening."

"A bath like Hiccup and Astrid used to enjoy?" I smiled.

"Yeah," she replied with a smile as well. "It can be a bath like that."

"I'll see if I can have my 'yes' nailed down by then," I quipped, before changing tone. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't joke about stuff like that."

"You have only seen this house so far," Roana empathized. "How about we both get ready here, and then see the rest of this village and island together. Then let us talk about your choice some more."

"You are good," I admired. "So good, Roana."

"Thank you," she accepted gratefully. "I am trying," she then joked with a smile.

I got up from the table with a smile myself, took her hand as she stood up as well, just brought her to me, and hugged her.

— — — — —

Soon, each of us was changed, separately, into basically the same attire we were wearing yesterday. With me minimally cleaned up with Roana's help . . . I had not had my hair brushed by someone else since I was a kid . . . she finally opened the front door of her house.

What I saw through that doorway now just floored me. In front of me was a surprisingly busy village. People and dragons seemed to be everywhere, living and working together as equals. It was an amazing, even stunning, heaven. Wooden houses, workshops and sheds with moss-covered roofs, were all set in a narrow, green valley, surrounded by forested hills and small mountains. The ocean, or rather a fog covering it, was just visible through a gap at the foot of the valley. Yet it was sunny over the village itself.

Goats and sheep were even grazing on some roofs, while dragons were perched on others, along with a few humans, seeming to watch the world go by in front of them. Just beyond the village there were fields of crops growing, herds were grazing on the grassy hillsides . . . it was incredible.

"Welcome to New Berk, Lance," Roana said warmly as she took my hand.

I continued to look with awe at a place, people and creatures that couldn't possibly exist in our modern time, and yet did. Most every human was dressed like Roana was—in simple tunics, with leather or pelt vests or jackets of various types, either pants or dresses made of local cloth or skirts made of leather, and leather boots. Suddenly the way she was dressing no longer seemed strange. It made sense here . . . simple, homemade materials that were able to stand up to heavy use and primitive washing. The horned hats of Viking lore seemed to be gone, at least in the everyday. But otherwise this was a Viking society that had somehow endured, completely independent of anything else, into the Space Age.

Roana seemed to know I needed a moment to absorb the reality of all this.

"AAAAAAAHHH!" I suddenly exclaimed however as this green and orange thing about the size of an eagle landed on my left shoulder.

"Fara! Finna snarl annars statar í bili!" Roana scolded it, reaching across in front of me and almost pushing it off my shoulder with her hand. The small dragon now flew off into the air as I watched it go while I recovered my wits.

"Sorry," she then apologised. "That was Afganga or 'Leftovers' in English, a Terror dragon. He is always looking for an easy handout. You feed him and he will stay on your shoulder all day . . . or until he spies someone else he thinks he can get a snack from. Shall we look around?" she then invited with a smile, as I, and the 'outsider' clothes I was wearing, began to attract a few stares around us, from both humans and dragons.

"S-Sure . . ." I said still recovering from that surprise as we stepped off her porch and began walking through the village together. Two young boys then almost bumped into us as they were being chased by a small Night Fury.

"Fartu varlega! Keyra utan í þorpinu!" Roana turned and called to them as they kept right on running anyway. "Kids playing tag," she excused to me. "The dragons usually win."

"Okayy," I slowly tried to accept as I continued to look around us. "But how do you keep all this hidden though?" I then asked.

"As you can see, our roofs have grass and moss on them, so they blend in with the valley well. But we are seen, by some," she explained as she instinctively pulled me out of the way of a large, blue Nadder dragon as it walked past us, with me turning to stare at it.

"Sorry, you were in her blind spot. She couldn't see you where you were walking," Roana explained before resuming her answer. "Norway, America, the British, NATO, the Soviets . . . they know we exist. They can see us with their spy satellites. We disclosed ourselves to them during World War II in fact, after we had been helping the Allies for a while. It became unavoidable when we began to be overflown by Nazi planes, who naturally discovered a fog-shrouded island not on their charts, even though we were blended in with the coastline in what has been a wildlife reserve for some time, thanks to Outside Berkers in the Norwegian Parliament in Oslo.

"Knowing what we already did about the Nazis though as they invaded the rest of Norway," she continued, "we could not tolerate their presence on our island as a forward base, or being on the side of such hatred and evil. So, our dragons and riders began engaging their planes as we encountered them, and bringing them down. Night Fury blasts just shattered those fragile planes, and Nightmares coated them in fiery lava, which did the job, too. Fortunately Nazi troops could never reach us by sea or land, and they had other things to do in Norway besides massing to try and invade this coastal region by air alone. Our ancestors were wise in choosing this place.

"But when our Dragon Riders began spotting Allied ship convoys start to pass near us en route to Murmansk, Russia, and even having our dragons fired upon by them a few times initially," she noted, "we decided to break our centuries-long seclusion. So we sent a couple of emissaries, our village chief and an Outside Berker to an air base in Scotland . . . by dragon, of course . . . to introduce ourselves and negotiate with the Allies, and with the Norwegian government in exile. We agreed to help them around our waters, in exchange for continued anonymity and secrecy. They did not want to admit that their best planes could be easily downed by our dragons anyway. We still can do that, by the way, as long as our Night Furies fire from ahead of the jet planes, and they fly into our blasts."

"What did you do with the pilots and crews of those downed planes?" I asked.

"Among those who were able to parachute down and survive, we mostly used the memory drugs," she answered as we continued walking. "Our Dragon Riders then set them down again on the mainland, complete with bits of wreckage. We initially tried offering some of them a new life here, as we could use fresh blood in our human gene pools. But most of them were so indoctrinated, thinking we were 'lost Aryans', but hating our dragons, that it did not work. One downed Nazi bomber crew tried to conquer us with guns, and the few other Nazi pilots we thought had joined us earlier, sided with them. That was the only bloodshed this village has ever seen. We had to kill all of them with dragon blasts, directly. They are commemorated, along with our fallen people and dragons, together in a memorial I will show you later."

"Together?" I asked. "Enemies?"

"We and the dragons have come to believe that all life is one," Roana replied. "That was driven home to us when we could not tell some of the blasted and charred bodies and remnants of the enemy from our own. It felt right to finish cremating and returning their ashes to the sea, together. We do not have space to bury over forty generations here. We found peace within us from remembering the Nazis along with our fallen, and forgiveness for the German people, for even the avowed Nazis. Plus, some grown children from brief unions with the Nazi pilots we thought had joined us are with us now, and aware of their parentage. We accept and love them, so we do that with their fathers as well. Every child here though is told the stories in detail as part of our lore, especially when they visit the memorial."

"Were planes the only contact problem you've had with outsiders then?" I asked.

"We have had the odd shipwreck around here," she responded. "After about 1890 though, shipwrecks seemed to become so common, that we established a remote lifeboat station on the outside nearby, crewed by Outside Berkers, so that our Dragon Riders didn't have to get involved directly in rescues anymore. Our riders just alert the station when they spot a ship or boat in trouble. The station has become our main transfer point and communications link with the outside as well."

"But we have salvaged batteries and generators off a U-Boat or freighter or two," Roana continued. "That is how we started having limited electricity. We have mobile wind turbine generators now we can erect and hide when needed, years ahead of the rest of you. As you can see though, this valley is so deep and narrow that you need to be right over it to see us. And we are in a quarantined wildlife refuge, as I said. Our island is still not clearly delineated on any maps. Follow any outsider topographic map or navigational chart, and you will get lost around here within the quarantine zone. The Norwegian Coast Guard, Environment Ministry, and Royal Navy enforce that quarantine well, but even their crews do not know what is here. They just follow orders, thinking they are guarding rare bird nests—which in a sense is true. Anyone who ventures past the quarantine boundaries and reaches our island is captured, drugged and returned to the outside. We maintain both ground and Dragon Rider aerial patrols around our island. Rökkr and I participate in those patrols periodically. No one escapes the dragons' senses or attention."

"You people have this down," I admired, looking around.

"We have been doing this ever since we left Old Berk, almost a thousand years ago," Roana answered, "all with one purpose . . ."

"For the dragons," I replied.

"Yes," she affirmed.

"But is this the 'Dragon's Island' referred to in the journal?" I asked.

"No, that was deemed to be too far south, and too close to Old Berk, to be safe," she explained. "Just as the Romans never conquered the north, we knew their Catholic successors would have limits on their areas of interest, too. We just had to put enough mountains and winter harshness between us and them. Plus, some other Christianized Norse tribes knew of that island, and Hiccup and Astrid knew the 'dark robes', as we called the missionary monks and clergy, would eventually search there. The wild dragons who chose to stay were soon found and slaughtered, despite the great cost in lives to the soldiers that killed them. But the dark robes did not care. The remains of the dragons killed there were burned, even their bones crushed, to eliminate all evidence they existed. There is a memorial stone to them as well, near our World War II memorial."

"That still upsets you," I noted, seeing her look down, "the loss of those dragons."

"Yes, it does," Roana quietly answered. "We lost all but the six dragon species we have now . . . Night Furies, Nightmares, Zipplebacks, Nadders, Gronckles, and Terrors . . . during that great and needless slaughter, and a few other isolated slaughters later elsewhere that wiped out the rest. Hiccup and Astrid even led some Dragon Riders to try and save what dragons they could on that island. We saved some that day, but had to withdraw, leaving thousands of dragons behind to die. That we know this event so well is because it is what caused Hiccup to start writing. He says so late in his journal. I still feel that pain though across time, whenever I think about it."

"Thousands of creatures . . . just like these," I pondered as I looked around us, now feeling a touch of sadness myself.

"Yes," Roana confirmed as she looked at them with me.

I began to feel a sense of purpose, even mission, about them, too. But then I saw something that alarmed me.

"Hey, that dragon is threatening that child!" I said now breaking away from Roana as I saw a red Nightmare dragon barking at a small, crying child.

"Lance, wait!" my guide responded as she rushed to grab me. "That child belongs with that dragon."

"Belongs?" I said incredulously as I let her stop me.

"That dragon was part of her family," Roana explained, "before that little girl's parents died, the father in fighting a neighbour's accidental house fire here, the mother recently to cancer. The mother asked that dragon, trusted her, to raise the child. The rest of us help at times, the girl schools with the other children, but that dragon raises her in their family's house now . . . feeding her, and loving her. She is just giving the girl a little talking to, a little correction, like any parent would. See?"

I watched dumbfounded as the small girl and the large dragon then walked off calmly together.

"Why wouldn't the mother choose another human to raise her?" I asked, still looking their way.

"Because the girl has known that dragon her whole life," Roana answered, "just as she has known the home they live in her whole life. That dragon knows what the mother wants for the girl, even how the mother wanted her raised. That girl couldn't have a better adoptive parent now who will continue to provide the love and sense of family she has always known. Dragons are equals here. They can do anything we can. See that outdoor class over there on the grass?" she now pointed in a somewhat different direction.

"Yeah," I replied.

"Who is teaching it?" my guide simply posed.

"I just see human children and dragons . . . with a dragon facing the rest of the class, a Night Fury," I observed, looking closely, even squinting a little.

"That dragon is the teacher of the class," Roana confirmed as she looked on with me. "Sounds like they're discussing a chapter of the journal, using it to talk about family relationships, even the nature of love."

"Look," I said, "I know Toothless and Fury lived as part of Hiccup's family, but how can dragons teach humans about human families and love?"

"Dragons never divorce," she simply replied, stopping me cold. "They don't even leave human families once they bond into them."

I decided to change the subject. "You say 'we' a lot," I noted as we started walking together again, "even when referring to people who lived hundreds of years ago."

"You wanted an answer," Roana excused, almost apologetically.

"Yeah, but we're on a different question now," I sighed, indicating I really wanted to drop it and move on.

"We are one people . . . then, and now," she then proceeded to reply. "That is how connected we are here to everything . . . past, present, others . . . it is all one to us. We still pray to the old gods, and to Spirit, as the dragons think of God as. But we take the old gods at least as metaphor, rather than literal truth, recognizing they are representations and aspects of the Universe, as we are as well."

"When do you think all this can be revealed to the world?" I asked.

"My simplest answer is when humanity is able to welcome and live with aliens from another planet," she sighed as she looked away. "Because that is how 'far out' most people will perceive these dragons when they first encounter them. Think about your own reactions. If you were working for NASA or your government right now, and encountered these dragons, what would you do?"

"Capture, quarantine, and study them in isolated facilities," I sighed as well, looking at more dragons and villagers walking around us, "and try to control the media and public circus that would ensue around their habitat here."

"So what do you think is best for the dragons, right now?" she posed.

"Let them live here," I readily answered as I continued to look around. "Keep them hidden and live in harmony with them, until the outside world is able to accept and live with them, as you do here."

"So what is your choice?" she now asked.

I stopped and looked at her.

"Not quite yet," I admitted. "Nice try, though."

"Can you blame me?" she teased with a slight smile.

"No . . . and that's the problem," I sighed. "I can't, and I won't."

"You need to think less as a human," she suggested as she put an arm around me as we continued to walk, "and more like a dragon."

"What do you mean?" I asked, extending an arm around her as well while a small crowd of curious humans and dragons now began gathering around us on the grassy village commons.

"Be direct," she encouraged. "Simplify things, even issues down to what they really are. Then choose what is right, without stopping to think or judge. Your heart and spirit have already been doing that anyway. Just ask yourself, 'What is right?' then answer that question immediately without pausing, and almost always that is the right answer for you. Try it right now . . . is this life, and am I, right for you?"

"Roana, it's not that simple," I said, shaking my head.

"Yes, it is," she gently insisted, laying her hand on my heart. "You know yourself, and what is right for you, inside already. You can make this choice. Part of you already has. You just are not allowing yourself to recognize it. Be honest with yourself, Lance, and with me. You want to give me a gift for what I gave you last night? Give me your honesty."

"Alright, you want honesty?" I decided. "Part of me knows you're right. But a lot of me doesn't like being pressured."

"I am sorry, Lance," she sighed as she looked away and let her arm drop from my back. Suddenly, I missed the touch of her arm around me.

"I'm a little stubborn, even ornery at times, okay?" I sighed.

"That is not the real you," she gently asserted, looking at me again.

"How do you know, Roana?" I flatly asked. "How could you possibly know who the real me is, after just a day or so? After all, I turned you down the first two times you tried to say hello to me. I think that's pretty crappy of me."

"That is proof it is not your real self," she replied. "We do not hate our real selves. We love them. We only hate our false selves, because they keep us from that which we really want—in life, in love, everything. Fear, hate, frustration, withdrawal . . . that is our false self."

I just stopped and looked at her for a moment. "That is so true," I said in awe.

I had a brief flash of insight. _Me,_ I felt as I now looked at Roana. I knew what that meant, but I could not accept it. I was interrupted in my thoughts though as villagers, both human and dragon, now began openly crowding around us.

"Are these people expecting me or us . . . ?" I then asked.

"They know who you are, and they are hoping," Roana replied directly, "just as I am." She now looked away and sighed in disappointment at the interruption, seeming to feel that she had almost reached me. Seeing her disappointed like this now hurt me inside.

"But come," Roana now said. "Let us look around some more, and talk. If we keep moving, they will follow behind us, instead of surrounding us."

She just took my dumbfounded self by the hand as we began walking again. I was indeed in Dragonland. But unlike Dorothy in Oz, or Alice in Wonderland, or Gulliver in his travels . . . these people, especially Roana, _really_ didn't want me to leave.

Then we heard a dragon unexpectedly roar nearby.

Roana briefly froze with a sudden, chilled look on her face. "Come with me," she then urgently said, turning us back as she led me through the crowd.

We soon found a Night Fury collapsed on the ground, now moaning.

"It's Blóm, or 'Flowers'," Roana sadly noted. "She has been gestating an egg. This is not a good sign."

"What can I do?" I asked.

"Help me roll her over onto her side so I can check her abdomen," Roana directed as we, and another villager and even a Nadder dragon helped roll Blóm onto her side. "Lyftu hana hind fótur. Lift her hind leg," Roana then ordered in both Norse and English for my benefit as I and another man hoisted the Night Fury's rear leg while Roana dropped to her knees and began carefully probing the dragon's abdomen.

"Is there any discharge?" she urgently asked without looking at me.

"Uhh . . ." I briefly stammered, hurriedly looking for any openings or cavities, which on similar reptiles in the outside world would be at the base of the tail.

"Is there any discharge?" Roana insistently asked again as she continued to press her fingers along the dragon's underside.

Finally, I saw it. "There's blood beginning to flow out," I reluctantly noted. "The flow is increasing rapidly."

"No!" she responded almost tearfully. "The eggshell has ruptured inside her. It is lacerating her organs and tissues. We have to perform surgery now, right here. Will you assist me, Doctor?"

"Yes," I instinctively responded.

"Skurtlækningar! Hér! Nú! Fá hljótfæri mitt!" Roana barked to others in Norse. "Rúlla hana frekari á hana bak! Roll her further onto her back!" she then ordered in both languages as together, we all rolled Blóm further onto her back. By now, the dragon was roaring with pain as her body convulsed, instinctively trying to push the shattered egg out of her.

Roana took a large syringe and bottle that a villager brought to her. She loaded the syringe with a dose from the bottle and then immediately turned and injected it into the Night Fury's neck. The dragon soon quieted and went limp. "She is anesthetized now. Alcohol wipe," Roana then said, holding out her right hand towards me as I looked at her. "Alcohol wipe!" she repeated, now looking at me. "You're assisting me, Doctor. Remember?"

"Oh, right. Sorry," I apologised, never having done what few surgeries I had participated in during my education as a biologist outside an operating room or lab. I quickly turned and ripped open a pack of them from one of several stainless steel trays of instruments and supplies other villagers were now bringing us. "Alcohol wipe," I confirmed, as I handed her one. Roana then used it to rapidly scrub an area of the Night Fury's abdomen.

"Scalpel," she then called for holding out her right hand without looking at me.

"Scalpel," I confirmed, handing her the largest one from among the instruments a villager was now holding on what I hoped was a sterilized cloth next to us. "No masks, scrubs or gloves?" I asked.

"No time," Roana responded as she slit open the dragon's abdomen. "We will use alcohol wipes as we go. Forceps!"

"Forceps," I replied, handing her a pair as I took the scalpel back from her. She probed with them some into the dragon's abdomen, but then withdrew them, just casting the instrument aside.

"Alcohol wipe!" she then ordered.

"Alcohol wipe," I echoed as I handed another one of those to her.

Roana wiped her own hands with it before plunging her left hand into the Night Fury's abdomen. She immediately proceeded to lift out shell fragment after shell fragment, tossing them aside as she did. Some of the pointed, sharp-edged fragments shattered further in her hand as she removed them.

"Specimen jar, five litres," she then ordered.

"Specimen jar?" I wondered.

"For the baby, if we can save it," she rapidly explained as she continued to remove fragments of the eggshell.

As I turned and found the large, transparent jar that she was asking for, which a villager had fortunately brought, I glanced forward to see another villager, a woman in a long, dark blue farming dress, apply a wide oxygen mask over the Night Fury's nostrils, turning the valve on a green cylinder nearby.

"Okay, here comes the baby," Roana said reaching inside the Night Fury's abdomen with both her hands now. "Hold the jar as I place the baby in."

"Gotcha," I confirmed as I picked up the jar.

Roana now gently pulled a tiny, black, embryonic form out of the dragon's abdomen. I moved the jar under her hands at an angle as she released the baby and it gently slid down to the bottom of the jar.

"Keep holding the jar," she then instructed. "I am going to try and recover as much of the egg yolk as possible. The baby needs to be immersed in it to survive."

"Ready," I confirmed.

She then cupped both her hands as she immersed them inside Blóm's abdomen again, scooping up a yellowish, almost jelly-like substance, and placing it into the jar around the hatchling. Each subsequent handful was coming out redder and redder though.

"Roana," I gently cautioned, "I think you're pulling out more blood now than yolk. But the baby is immersed."

"We need more," she tearfully said. "The baby has four months of growth yet before it's supposed to hatch."

"The baby's not moving," I noted as I looked at it though.

"Let me see," she asked as I held the jar for her.

She reached a hand into the jar and gently rolled the baby dragon over within the now reddish yolk.

"No," she sniffed as we both looked at the hatchling. A fragment of eggshell was embedded into its soft abdomen. We had lost the baby.

"Hvernig er Blóm gera? How is Blóm doing?" Roana then asked in both languages, trying to recover herself and glancing at both me and a couple villagers crouched around the front of the mother Night Fury as well.

"The discharge of blood is high," I hesitantly noted looking next to me as two other villagers were trying to stem its flow now with gauze. A man next to Roana now with a stethoscope against the dragon's chest now shook his head no, as did the woman holding the oxygen mask, slowly removing it from the dragon's snout and closing the valve on the cylinder.

Roana then turned around and just sat on the ground, scrunching up her knees and burying her face in her still bloodied hands.

"This is happening too often," she quietly wept as she now looked at me with smears of the dragon's blood on her face. "This is how we're losing our female Night Furies, one by one; or in this case, two at a time . . . mother and child. It's even happening to some other dragons, too. It can't go on like this. My generation is at risk of losing everything, Lance . . . everything we have worked for."

All I had ever done on the outside—all the lab work, theorizing and analysis—it now seemed so insignificant.

My choice couldn't be clearer, or starker.


	9. Chapter 9

Soon, I was helping Roana put the hatchling Night Fury back inside its mother so that they both could be cremated together. Aside from asking for suture thread and a needle to sew the incision on the mother loosely closed, Roana wasn't saying a word. After she had finished, she simply laid a bloodied hand on the dragon's black abdomen, bowed her head and tearfully whispered, "Ek er hryggr."

Another Night Fury broke through the crowd around us, with a sudden look of shock and sadness now on its face. I presumed this was Blóm's mate.

"Ek er svo hryggr," Roana now said, turning to him, still on her knees and bowing her head deeply. This Night Fury moved to gently nudge her, closing his own eyes as he did.

I was at an utter loss as to what to do for her, for either of them, as I watched. Finally, I turned away for a moment, only to find the huge, tooth-filled snout and head of a red Nightmare dragon staring me in the face. It proceeded to grunt at me, looking me square in the eye.

"This is Árvekni or 'Vigilance', our Great Guardian," Roana explained behind me. "He knows who you are, and is saying you have come just in time . . . that our need for you is great. He is thanking you for coming."

I looked down, bowing my head somewhat and not knowing what to say. Then I heard the dragon grunting over my head, presumably towards Roana.

"He is asking me what is wrong with you?" she relayed to me. "He's wondering if he is mistaken, if you are staying? What can I tell him?"

"I don't know yet," I reluctantly said with my head still bowed.

"Lance," Roana objected. "We need you . . . and I want you. These dragons will continue dying without your help."

"I know," I slowly replied, looking at the ground, vacantly staring practically right at the huge curved black talons of the Nightmare in front of me. "I need time to think."

"No you don't," she sadly countered. "You know the right thing to do here, Lance. Why can't you do it?"

"Because this isn't the freedom and choice you claim to cherish!" I snapped, now rising to my feet but refusing to look at either Roana or Árvekni.

"I never said choice or choosing the right thing was easy," she responded right back, "or that freedom didn't come without cost or difficulty."

I now just walked away past the Nightmare in silence, with a dragon's blood and yolk still caked on my hands. But soon, I felt two presences following me . . . one huge, and one my size. This was confirmed when I heard grunting.

"He's asking where are you going?" I heard behind me.

"I don't know," I simply said as I continued walking, before hearing a series of human generated grunts echoing my words.

"He says, 'That is your problem,'" I heard translated back for my benefit.

"How would you know what my 'problem' is?" I snapped, now stopping and turning sharply around to find my nose just inches from Árvekni's tooth-filled snout again as Roana stood beside him, translating.

"He responds, 'How could anyone fail to see what your problem is?'" Roana conveyed as the dragon grunted, looking at me with narrowed eyes. "'It is alienation, lack of trust, lack of heart. That you could turn away from helping others who are so sad . . . you are worse off than the mother and child we just lost. You are dead, even to yourself.'"

"Maybe I am," I quietly admitted as I looked down again. "But what I have been through lately back home has made me that way."

"He says, 'Then that is not the right home for you, is it?'" she interpreted. Roana then made some more grunts as she looked towards the large dragon. He simply grunted, almost nodding, before turning and walking away on his two large legs and his red, bony wingtips. Even I could see he was tense or pensive.

"I am sorry, Lance," Roana now quietly added as she stepped closer to me, "for what he said to you. Dragons speak and confront directly. They do not, as you say, 'mince words.'"

"He's right," I sighed, looking at her.

"Then why can't you make your choice?" she asked.

"I thought you said I had time here," I objected. "Even that I would know when it was time because I would feel it, or not be afraid or something. How about we clean up at the lab you've told me about? I for one would like to get this blood and yolk off me."

"That blood and yolk came from a patient, and a friend of mine!" Roana forcefully replied as she gave me a shocked and angry look. "This way!" she then said coolly as she just started walking off across the grass of the village commons without me.

"Roana . . . I'm sorry," I said as I rushed across the village grass to catch up beside her again. "I was out of line with that. As a doctor, I should have known better."

"Just save it!" she said in sad frustration.

I was stunned. That phrase was just what I tended to say when I was irritated back home. But I had never said it with her.

She stopped herself. "Lance, I am very sorry I said that," she apologised as she looked at me now, even taking my blood-covered hand in both of hers. "I do not know what came over me."

I had come over her. That was me talking within her. I looked at her and then looked away, feeling I couldn't dare let on about any of this. If I did, it was all over . . . I would lose myself to her. God, this was scary, and felt so very close now. It was like nothing I had ever experienced before.

We both just stopped for a moment, each of us trying to silently regroup, even get a grip on ourselves again.

"Come," she eventually said, trying to put on a smile for me now. "Let me show you the lab . . . so long as it will not negatively influence you."

"That bad?" I wondered, glad for the lighter change of subject, as I was able to glance at her once more.

"It is primitive," she allowed.

"You have courage in showing it to me then," I replied as we began walking side by side once more.

"You would hate me if you came to feel I had deceived you," she just said openly. "I cannot permit that between us."

"You're loving me," I tried to lightly, even playfully, caution for a change with a slight smile as I looked forward.

"I am," she replied.

I looked at her as we walked. Roana looked back at me. It was all so straightforward. She was just reeling me in again . . . trying to win me, and wasn't hiding it now. She was back on her game, and once more she was taking things to a new level. That was Roana—confident, knowing, loving Roana. She was perfect. So perfect to me it hurt. I should have been relishing this, relishing her. But for some reason, I was suddenly feeling very restless and ill at ease.

"This is backwards!" I finally objected, stopping both of us for a moment and looking away. "The guy is supposed to woo the girl, not the other way around!"

"If we were going to live in your world, yes," she answered, "that is how it would normally happen. But that is not possible, not for me anyway . . . and not for you, if you want to be with me. You have to agree to come and live here with me, and I have to convince you. Otherwise you have to leave, and I have to drug you . . . either today or tomorrow at the latest. That is really all there is to it."

"That's blunt," I noted with some astonishment.

"That is how we think here," she reiterated, "how the dragons think. You have even just seen and heard it! That is what they have given us. The dragons do not see a need or reason for thinking and feeling one way inside, yet speaking differently on the outside. They are of one mind, not two. They are not confused or conflicted within themselves, or divided against their own interests. They could teach the world that, if the world was ready to listen!"

I was surprised by her sudden forcefulness. Roana noticed my reaction and looked down.

"But here is the lab," she now deflected for a moment, as we found ourselves near a pair of large wooden doors set into the hillside.

Once again, I was grateful for the distraction. We both were.

She then opened one large door, and flipped on some electric lights. "This is also my clinic," she continued, recomposing herself, "where I treat the dragons sometimes, only one at a time though in here—except if they are Gronkles or little Terrors."

She stopped as several villagers now quietly followed us into the clinic, interrupting us, as they brought back the trays and cases of surgical instruments and equipment we had been using. Roana just silently waited, bowing her head with tears in her eyes again and folding her hands in front of her, as the others quietly put the equipment away or to be cleaned later. An older village woman came to her, putting a hand on her shoulder and seeming to offer some consolation, but Roana waived her away with a subtle shake of her head and a soft, "Ekki núna."

I now felt deeply for Roana . . . having to juggle me, and now the death of a dragon friend she couldn't save. _Why can't I just say yes?_ I wondered in my thoughts as I glanced at her. _What's stopping me?_

The other villagers then withdrew from the bunker, closing the door behind them.

"Roana . . ." I hesitantly began.

"Fortunately, we also have a doctor among us," she resumed her seeming tour narration, interrupting me, "to treat the humans. He was the one who monitored Blóm's heartbeat next to me with a stethoscope as we operated on her a short while ago."

"Roana," I interrupted her.

"Just let me talk, the way I want for now . . . please?" she asked.

"Alright," I relented, gently nodding towards her. I wanted to embrace her, comfort her right then—but something caused me to respect the space, the boundaries, she seemed to be wanting for the moment.

"I almost talked myself into marrying him," she resumed again with a sigh, " . . . and I use that term deliberately, because it would not have been mating. Both the doctor and I knew it though. He, and Rökkr," she sniffed, "helped me to make the right choice however, and remain single. Besides, the doctor was always really interested in someone else. Being with me helped him realize that. But the wash sink is over there. Soap is on the left side," she then gestured with a look and a hand. "Use as little water as you can though. The pressure tank does not hold much."

"You first, Roana . . . please?" I offered in a conciliatory way. I immediately almost winced, realizing I was using please the way she would. Now she was talking within me as well.

"Thank you," she quietly accepted not seeming to notice however, walking over and beginning to wash her hands and face with short bursts of water from the tap using a foot treadle.

"It's nice to know you have something of a mixed past, too," I noted, trying to fill the silence between us while she washed. "Geez, Roana, I'm sorry I said that," I then quickly countermanded myself. "It was not nice of me."

"I was feeling comforted by your mixed past, too, actually," she admitted as she finished washing and began drying her hands and face with the first cloth towel I'd seen here, moving to one side of the sink for me. "I was thinking it would help you understand me and what I want better. Rökkr has been the one really helping me though," she sighed as she looked away.

As I began washing my own hands with the homemade bar of lye and oatmeal soap, I realized I loved Roana now. But I also found myself rebelling at what was beginning to feel like a rushed or arranged marriage. I even felt like I was a zoo animal who was being just flatly introduced to his preselected mate, with the mate wanting what was going on.

Suddenly it was war inside me. Light versus dark. Love versus fear. I glanced aside at Roana as she finished drying her hands. She couldn't help who she was. She had been born into this. I felt my heart swing back from rebellion to caring about her again.

"Tell me about it," I invited as she now gave me a surprised look while she offered me the hand towel. "You and Rökkr . . . just tell me. I want to know about you two."

"Well," she hesitated, looking down, "I went through what you would call 'hell' around the time when I made my choice to answer the call, come back here and take on the medical care of the dragons . . . without having found my mate, my real mate. While I felt lost in the outside world and its different values and ways—coming back to this village, I felt I was condemning myself to a life of solitude. Neighbours and friends yes, even perhaps the occasional sexual 'exploration', or at least release. But no mate, no deep love. Having known everyone here since my birth, and never feeling very attracted towards anyone close to my age . . . which is partly why I went overseas to college . . . I did not know how I would ever find love back here, or even bring it here. Returning to this place was the hardest thing I have ever done—the hardest choice I have ever made.

"There were times in the beginning when I came back, that I felt I had to leave again," she continued. "But then I just looked at a dragon, any dragon . . . and I was able to find peace, as well as strength and faith, in my choice once more, even though I remained sad in my heart. Actually, that is when I met Rökkr. He found me crying on a hillside one day, wondering what the hell I had done . . ." her voice trailed off as she seemed to become lost in that memory.

"Go on," I invited as I looked at her with compassion, beginning to even feel admiration for her now. Her admissions, her vulnerability . . . they were helping me.

"I had buried my face in my arms, resting against my knees as I sat in the grass, like you had done on the beach that night," she said as she glanced at me. "I just sensed something as I was crying though. I looked up, and found Rökkr gazing out across the valley beside me. With typical dragon directness, he gently murmured at me, 'You need a companion.' I angrily replied, 'No kidding!' . . . that is the polite, English version of it anyway. He just repeated, 'You need a companion, a guardian for your heart, until your mate arrives.' I am embarrassed to say how I exploded at him at first, yelling in Norse, 'Do not torture me with hope!' I was a lot nastier to him than you ever were to me in our first encounters.

"He just stood there calmly next to me," she continued, "looking out on the valley as I vented, even spewed frustration and despair at him. When I had finished . . . exhausted myself . . . he simply grunted, 'Let me take you home.' He was already taking care of me. I climbed on him for the first time, and wrapped my whole self around his neck as he spread his wings and gently flew me home. It was the last time I wore my old college clothes. He burned them for me after that, out of my sight, telling me I did not need the distraction from my choice of being a Dragon Berker once more. He taught me the inner discipline, and perhaps wisdom, I have now. I almost named him Dís, or 'Angel', but he reminded me that was a girl's name among us. He happened to note a little later that he is dark, like a shadow, and that our shadow never leaves us. He has literally been my 'shadow' ever since . . . my close companion, without either he or I asking a single question about it. He is only not here now, to allow you and I to connect without distraction and make our choice."

"He is willing to share you with me?" I asked.

"It is his commitment as my dragon companion to share me with my mate, but only the right one. He growls at the wrong ones!" she sniffed with a laugh. "This morning, before you woke up though, he quietly advised me to just claim you . . . telling me that you are not happy alone."

"He noticed that about me?" I asked, surprised.

"Dragons seem at times to be in touch with a deeper perception, even a deeper truth," she answered, "seeing things in ways we cannot or will not. Even Árvekni saw the truth within you, didn't he?"

"He did," I quietly admitted.

"That is why I love them, Lance," she continued, "why I have devoted my life to them. Dragons help us to know a truth, even our true selves, that we could not know on the outside. But Rökkr, he thinks you have the makings of the right mate for me. He has never said that about anyone else. It makes this feel right to me, Lance, so right. But I should not have said this," she said as she now looked down. "I am being too direct here . . . thinking too much like a dragon."

We both paused for a moment in awkward silence, before the large wooden door was being opened again.

"Not now, please, Rökkr?" Roana quietly asked, looking at the silent intruder as she stood apart from me with her arms folded.

Coming into the lab anyway, the dragon started murmuring, his eyes fixed on me.

"I am not going to tell him that!" she objected, looking at Rökkr now as he moved beside her. He gave her a sharp bark however, glancing at her with a surprisingly angry look, before settling his gaze once more on me.

"Lance, he's demanding that I say to you, 'See what you do to her, to us, even to yourself?'" Roana translated as Rökkr continued grunting. "'I thought you were our answered prayer. But you are allowing your fear to make you a danger, even a threat to us now. You are even dividing her and I, causing a difference of opinion. That rarely happens between us.'"

The dragon now approached me in a truly menacing manner. For the first time, I thought he might actually turn on me.

"He is saying, 'My companion has been through enough with you,'" Roana continued to convey as Rökkr grunted, approaching still closer towards me. "'Stay or leave. Decide, or I will haul you back to your world now, in my claws.'

"Rökkr, that is enough!" Roana now practically barked at him, causing him to stop and look back with a softened expression in his eyes at last. "Please . . ." she asked more gently now, almost breaking down herself.

The dragon relented, moving to give her a supportive nudge with his eyes closed, before turning to leave. As he went out, Rökkr just gave me a long, direct look, closing the door behind him with a gentle but echoing thump.

"I'm sorry," she then apologised, looking down. "He was protecting me . . . protecting all of us."

"Can't really argue with that," I sighed with relief. "But what does he want . . . in life?" I then asked as I looked towards the closed door, admittedly wanting to buy myself some more time to think, but also wondering if he was waiting just outside and wanting to try and be conciliatory if he was still listening. "Rökkr is owed something for all this, don't you think?" I added.

"He is strong, but very shy around females of his own kind," she replied, glancing briefly at me. "He seems to ignore them, but I know what is going on. I know he desires a mate, too. I think he even knows I will help him get one. I just . . . I do not know why I have not helped him before now more than I have. I am still weak, compared to him."

"You do what you can," I gently encouraged. "We each do. I'm right there, too. But Roana," I now admitted to her, " . . . this is a trap."

"I am sorry," she apologized. "It is for you. Even I can see that now. I . . . I should let you go then, just let you go. If you do not want to help the dragons, it is best for all of us if I do."

While part of me cringed for having let that out, I now stood there a little apart from her, finding myself weighing that option. I looked at her as she sadly looked at me. I imagined her alone again. I imagined more dragons dying in agony, as Blóm just had. All that pained me. It so pained me now.

"I'm sorry," I replied. "I didn't mean it that way."

"Yes you did," she gently countered.

"You know me," I quietly admitted.

"I hope you think I do," she patiently replied.

I looked away. Suddenly, I found myself flipping back again, and just had to speak my mind before it practically exploded within me. "Look, I find myself on the one hand, looking at a life . . . and a wife, Roana," I said, now pacing the lab in front of her. "Everybody's expecting me to just stay here. Part of me feels caged, even rebelling, over what I would be giving up . . . living here, for the rest of my life!"

"With me," she interjected. "But you told me yesterday this land, at least Norway, was home to you now."

"I did," I sadly laughed, shaking my head. "Arrrrgggghhhh!" I then said in frustration. "But, what I want to tell you now was that I just imagined you alone again here. And I can't stand to think of you that way! Roana, half of me not only wants to grunt with you, like you say dragons do with each other . . . I want to roar with you!"

I could see her tearfully smiling at my having said that.

"But the loss of my freedom that it would mean for me," I sighed. "Or the hell of solitude I would be condemning each of us to if I didn't give up that freedom. Can you see where I'm at here?" I asked her earnestly.

Roana nodded. "Yes, Lance," she said quietly, "I can. How can I help you?"

"I don't know!" I snapped. "Roana . . . I'm sorry for that," I then quickly said, countermanding myself again.

"I have said far worse things to Rökkr in the past," she assured. "You want me to touch you? Hold you? Even make love with you?"

"I want us to connect!" I said sharply. No I didn't, I immediately realized. She and I already_ were _connected! That was the problem!

"Well here then," she said as she swiftly walked to me and embraced me hard. "I connect with you now! I have been trying to reach you, so hard!" she said with tears in her eyes. "I don't know what else to do! I love you, Lance Hyse! I want to mate with you! Be your one true mate . . . who knows and loves you like no one else ever could . . . even yourself!"

I pressed my face into her hair and large, loose braids with those words, shutting my eyes tightly in condemnation. She was in my internal war now, almost a victim of it. Roana was right there, and she knew what was going on.

"Rökkr told me to just claim you, and I don't know if I can stop myself from doing that anymore! I can't . . ." she sobbed as she broke down and cried. "But I want you to give me your heart," she whispered against me now. "Please, give me your heart, Lance. Give me yourself. I'll give you my heart and my whole self. I swear."

I held her with tears in my own eyes. "How do we know it will last?" I asked. "I never want to go through a break-up again like I once did."

"Choice," she said tearfully but clearly. "We _choose_ to commit, to love each other, to put each other _first_, and to _never_ break it . . . because it _feels_ right! It feels good! And because the other choice feels like hell! That other one already feels so bad to me!"

Roana now drew her head back a little and looked at me with tears running down her face. "Lance, if you are afraid of jumping here . . . I no longer am. I am yours, Lance! I am your mate! And I will be for life now! I don't want anyone else. I never will! All you can do is turn me away, and leave me alone for the rest of my life! I give you the freedom to do that!" she said, now pushing herself away from me. "_That's _how much I love you! How much I _choose_ to love you!"

I looked at her in shock now.

"Claim me now! I dare you!" she angrily challenged as she now moved back and stood apart from me. "What feels right to you, Lance Hyse? What _really_ feels right?"

I now stepped back from her. "Roana," I said, shaking my head. "I don't want storms of love. I want peace. I've had anger, and angry words in my household before."

"I have given you peace, my love," she now said with quieter sadness and frustration. "But it has not seemed to reach you, not like you say you want. I just thought maybe 'not peace' would work here. You know, a little Viking rage," she sniffed with a laugh.

I looked at her.

"Lance, I have laid myself wide open now," Roana tearfully sighed. "I have all but stripped bare for you here—and I'll do that, too, if it helps. But I could not be trying to connect with you, or love you, more than I am. It is down to you making a choice. I know how hard that choice is. But now, you are making it for both of us."

"Just decide to make it so," I sighed as I looked down with tears in my own eyes, " . . . for a lifetime, here."

"Yes," she simply replied. "Lance, this struggle of yours . . . it's hurting me," she then sadly cautioned. "It says you do not love me, like I love you. You know how we will turn out together, Lance. You know it inside. I do."

"Paradise," I sniffed, feeling utterly convicted, knowing Roana was right.

"Think of Blóm . . . Flowers," she then said. "My friend was so looking forward to meeting you."

"She was?" I wondered, glancing at her again.

"She was looking forward to meeting the man who could help save her kind," Roana sadly confirmed.

I closed my eyes tightly in remorse for a moment. "I am so scared though," I then admitted.

"So was Blóm, as she was dying," she sobbed as well.

"That kind of puts things in perspective," I noted, wiping my eyes. "Real perspective."

"I'm scared, too, Lance," Roana continued. "I have touched the love I want here, with you. But I am terrified you are rejecting me, taking it all away. If . . . If I have to inject you later with memory drugs, I am going to have to inject myself, too. Because the memory of you these past few days will be too painful for me to bear alone. I am no good for anyone else anymore . . . because my heart is yours! It belongs to you! We are one, Lance!" she cried in agony. "We are one!"

Roana and I surged towards each other, catching one another in our arms. We cried out in powerful anguished relief together as we each buried our faces against each other's hair and shoulders.

"We are one!" I cried as well as I held Roana fiercely now. I had just taken that jump, right over the cliff.

"Lance!" she tearfully said in gratitude, seeming to sense what was going on within me. "I've got you now. I have you. Everything will be alright. I swear. I love you, and always will!"

"I-I want Blóm's death to mean something as well," I sniffed. "I can't walk away from that . . . I can't."

"Lance . . ." Roana wept with bittersweet joy. "We will save the dragons, together. Just you see."

A swirl of emotions was now unleashed within me, thinking of all that my choice now meant. "But I've just given up the outside world, haven't I?" I began to realize as I held onto her.

"You have gained a universe though . . . here," she tearfully assured, moving back a little and placing her hand gently over my heart, "and here," she then added, now taking my hand and placing it over her heart, keeping it there for a moment. "You've gained me, Lance. You have me now."

I proceeded to kiss her harder than I had ever kissed a woman in my life. She kissed me as well, completely, holding nothing back. I let it happen now, I just let her happen . . . to me, in me, through me.

I broke our kiss because I had to tell her something. "Roana," I sighed. "I am mated with you, right now. I know what it means. I do."

"Lance!" she cried, overjoyed, and hugging me tightly. "Lance, my sweet, precious mate!"

"I know I will never part or break from you now," I said burying my face against the side of her head again. "I have this intense, even violent determination from someplace that I never will."

"That is your Viking, my love," Roana told me. "Even an inner 'dragon' growing within you. And you have not even bonded with a dragon companion yet. They defend your choice within you once you have made it. Enjoy it, Lance. I am already savouring that inside you."

We kissed each other powerfully again.

"We're mated," I marvelled as I held her tightly. "No priests, no ceremony . . . yet I feel so much more than married to you. And we haven't even made love yet."

"Lance, I have to confess something to you," she said.

"What?" I asked.

"What do you think I was doing while I was massaging you last night?" she responded. "I was making love to you, Lance . . . with each touch, each caress . . . as wonderfully as I could. I couldn't help myself. I was giving myself to you, and savouring you, too, through my hands."

"Roana," I tearfully sighed, clutching her tightly and rubbing her lower back hard through the fabric of her tunic.

"Yes," she whispered as she pressed herself against me, savouring the same love I was now giving her through my hands. I reached under her tunic, just needing to press my hands against the bare skin of her lower back again. Roana kissed me powerfully in agreement, in reward. If there had been a soft surface anywhere in that lab, she and I would have taken each other right there.

Roana was the one to stop us this time though. "Lance," she sighed amid our aching passions for each other, "I so much want to do this right between us . . . but not here."

"Okay," I could only sigh as I withdrew my hand from the skin of her back, and smoothed her tunic down instead.

"However, I have another confession for you," she added.

"What now?" I smiled, touching my forehead to hers.

"Remember when I told you about something that would just screw things up between us?" she asked.

"Yeah," I gently replied as I could not stop my hands rubbing her back, even through her tunic.

"That is when I really mated with you, when I gave myself willingly to you," she confessed.

"I know . . ." I admitted with wonder, now holding and rocking her gently with deep appreciation. "I knew right then you had given yourself totally to me. That I wasn't ready to do the same . . . that hurt me."

"I knew that, too," she replied. "But I knew it would take all of me, all that I was to convince you to stay with me . . . to win you. So even last night, I had already jumped for us. I just knew I could not tell you in full though."

I could only reward her with kisses, practically breathing her into me as I did. "I knew," I finally said between kisses. "I knew it happened between us last night, even today. When you said, 'Just save it,' that was me talking inside you. It's a phrase I've used when I'm frustrated. It was all but over for me, right then."

Roana just smiled at me now, shaking her head. "Well then," she invited, "let's just save this . . . for later."

We both laughed as we kissed and hugged each other hard one more time.

"What do we do now?" I gently asked as we held and rocked each other, gazing deeply into one another's eyes, as if we had just indeed made love.

"How about we take a look around the lab here," she suggested. "Tell me what you think, and if you will need anything."

"Alright," I sighed, almost as if I was being told to stop playing and get back to work. "But Roana . . . grunt."

She practically melted against me again. "Grunt," she lovingly echoed as we squeezed each other. "But now you will have to love me as a dragon loves his mate."

"Show me how," I invited.

"I will . . . tonight," she assured. "But now, lab."

"Okay," I sighed with a smile as I gave her one more hug, and then turned to look around the stark space we were in as Roana and I remained close, arm in arm.

"Well . . . at least it's concrete lined," I noted, trying to look on the bright side.

"I know it is primitive," she said apologetically as we started walking around the stark and minimally equipped space a little. "Even I had better facilities in my freshman year at the university. But at least we have electricity here. Banks of batteries provide it . . . recharged by the mobile wind turbines, and bio-fuel distillate auxiliary generators from a wrecked freighter when needed. This is the only place we can power though. We do keep some community cold storage for food here as well outside of winter . . . off through that door on the side there. I know there should really be a separate entrance to the outside for that. It just has not been a priority."

"I might want to eventually hack out a separate underground room on the other side here, and move the lab into that," I noted. "I will need a sterile environment. But we can make this work," I sighed as we continued to walk around the lab. "I'll need more powerful microscopes though, and some finer tools to work with tissues and specimens at the cellular level. I'm not seeing surgical grade air compressors or vacuum pumps, either. Plus, I'll need culture incubators as well."

"As long as it can be brought on the back or in the claws of a dragon, I will see that you get what you need," Roana assured, "even if we need to bring it in pieces."

"Ships or even boats can never call here?" I asked.

"We deliberately picked an island that was basically only accessible by air . . . still mostly just with dragons, as there is not enough flat land for an airstrip," she replied. "There are no natural harbours, and such a jumble of rocks and hazards all around us that no sailors would dare approach. It is how we have been able to remain hidden for so long. We found this place, and moved here, all by air from ships offshore. Those of us who moved here gave up seafaring almost a thousand years ago."

"You were that desperate to escape with the dragons and survive?" I remarked with some degree of awe as I paused to check out some workbenches with her beside me.

"Read the rest of the journal," she replied. "I have a copy in the house. We will read it together actually. It tells of our exodus. That our people did that though . . . it is why we continue their work, and their purpose."

"That's good enough for me," I accepted as I gently kissed her again. "But I suppose there are a couple someones I suppose I should still meet here, don't you think?" I now suggested. "Where are your parents?"

"When they went with me as I started college," she noted, "they decided they liked the outside world, and wanted to become Outside Berkers, while I definitely felt called to come back and care for the dragons, despite my mate issue."

"Problem solved there now," I assured as I kissed her again.

Roana smiled briefly.

"Unfortunately," she continued, then losing her smile, "they died in a car accident several years ago, while returning to visit my uncle at the inn. He has been a father to me ever since, especially as his own wife passed years ago and they had no children, and I have no brothers or sisters either. He is my family now. His one great wish has been for me to find the love I want . . . someone to come to share my own commitment to the dragons."

"So he found me for you?" I deduced.

"Single, top-level biologist with learning in inbreeding issues, a Berker, albeit 'long-lost', who is a son of Hiccup no less?" she tallied up. "Yes, he found you for me. He only wrote tourism letters to single gentlemen. There have been a few others ahead of you, but they all washed out. They could not accept Rökkr, the journal, or often even the idea dragons exist. One I did not even try with . . . I could not get past lunch with him. The rest I had to drug, pretty much before we ever left the ground there."

"I'm sorry you had to go through all that," I replied.

"Well, why not make it up to me then?" she smiled as she drew closer to me.

"Roana, I would love to . . . my swan," I decided as I gave her a kiss.

"Lance, thank you for accepting this, and me," Roana said with tears emerging in her eyes as she drew herself tight against me again. "I am sorry this is so backwards," she softly added.

"No," I gently countered as I embraced her tightly. "It's the most wonderful forwards now I've ever known."

— — — — —

Finally grounding and composing ourselves again, Roana and I emerged from the 'biological bunker' as I began to think of it as, and back into the bright light of day. I had walked in as my own uncertain self. But I walked out as Roana's now.

"Lance, I am sorry," she apologised.

"What is it this time?" I smiled, looking just at her.

"For all this," she gestured as I now also noticed the much larger crowd in front of us now.

Dozens of people and dragons were now gathered in front of us.

"They find me or us this interesting?" I asked.

"I think they want to tell you through their silent presence how much they want you to stay with us," she replied. "How much they need you."

As she was telling me this, both Rökkr and Árvekni now emerged in front of the crowd, looking sternly at me.

This time, I looked right back. "Rökkr, would you come here please?" I calmly requested.

The Night Fury, whose strong gaze had practically turned me to jelly just a little while ago, now approached.

"Rökkr, you were right about me . . . but just a little bit late," I smiled. "Roana had already claimed me last night. I just had to accept it, which I've now done here. I have said yes . . . to both her, and all of you."

Rökkr slowly nodded, with a satisfied look on his face before he nudged firmly against me. I laid a hand on him in acknowledgement, while keeping an arm around Roana, as everyone began cheering around us.

"What's going on?" I asked with some confusion as I looked around while Rökkr still nudged against me.

"It is a ritual of true mating in our village," Roana replied, "the dragon's recognition and acceptance of their human companion's chosen mate. They cannot be deceived, and they can also sense a bad or flawed match. As I told you, he growled at every other man I ever got close to once I had bonded with him, doing so even when we were at the inn. But he has never once growled at you, although he did give you a hard talking-to."

"I deserved it," I was now able to smile.

"But by his nudging you," she then continued, "everyone knows you are staying now, and that we are mated."

I looked at the Night Fury as he once again looked up at me and began murmuring.

"And he says he's now sorry for what he said earlier," she conveyed.

"It worked, Rökkr," I gently smiled to him.

"He says, 'I already owe you more than I can ever repay,'" she translated again as he grunted, "' . . . for Roana's happiness, and my kind's future.'"

"Rökkr," I decided as my hand still lay on his head, "I think I owe you just as much."

I turned and looked at Roana now as she tearfully looked at me with indescribable joy. I could only hug and kiss her again. The cheering around us grew even louder.

"They don't wait for a ceremony?" I asked as we ended our kiss.

Roana just shook her head and smiled. "We are mated, my love . . . both to ourselves, and now to everyone around us."

"So you celebrate the moment the choice is actually made here," I marvelled, "rather than do it all in a formal ceremony later?"

"That is it exactly," she confirmed. "We celebrate the real act of choice and decision here, not just an externalized or packaged symbol or ritual of it afterwards. There will still be a feast for us though, and we can add some rituals and ceremony to that as we like. As I said, it's what the dragons have given us. We do not care about ceremonies as much as we once did, or as much as most any humans do elsewhere. Sorry if you felt like you missed it all though."

"I do feel like I missed it," I sighed. "It seemed like we were debating, even arguing in there, and suddenly, voom! We're mated and everyone's celebrating here."

Roana just kissed me again with understanding. I kissed her deeply as well, while noticing Árvekni was stepping forward out of the corner of my eye, giving me a very hard look as I turned to face him.

"Just be honest with him, and yourself," my new mate advised next to me. "I will translate."

"Árvekni . . . you were right about me," I admitted as Roana translated for me. The dragon then interrupted me with grunts as I was about to confess and apologise further.

"He is saying, 'I know,'" Roana conveyed. "He is just glad you can see it, too . . . and welcomes you to New Berk."

Árvekni then just turned around and left as the crowd parted respectfully for him.

"But I hadn't finished," I quietly said aside to Roana.

"He saw and heard all he needed to from you," she replied as we both watched him go. "You will find he is a dragon of few words, and just not much for conversation. His sole focus is the safety and wellbeing of this village. When one problem is resolved, he goes and looks for the next one. It is why he is our Great Guardian."

Another authoritative figure now emerged through the crowd though. I saw Roana look towards him and straighten herself up.

"Our Chief," Roana introduced as a man with rugged blonde hair and a thick beard, with streaks of grey in it all, and dressed with a shaggy-looking cape, now stopped in front of us alongside Rökkr, "Roald Hofferson."

"A descendant of Astrid's family," I recognized from the journal.

"Very good," she smiled at me.

Roald now spoke to us with such a thick accent however, that even though I knew Old Norse writing, I could not make heads or tails of what he was saying. I looked to Roana.

"First, he is asking if you are one of us," she explained. "His further response and everything else will hinge on that. You must say so. I will translate."

"All this nudging and cheering wasn't enough?" I quietly wondered.

"He is our Chief," she whispered in my ear. "He and the Great Guardian are basically equals, and they each like to have their 'public moments' shall we say, verifying things in their own ways and to their own satisfactions. So just say it, alright?"

I smiled, almost quietly laughing as I put my arm again around Roana, glancing warmly at her before I looked at him and replied, "Yes, I am one of us now . . . and my loyalty is to this village, our people, and the dragons . . . and my love for Roana."

"I will alter that in translation for you," she quietly advised to me with a smile, "as the dragons always come first in our priorities here. And I would like to be a little higher on your list myself, if you would not mind."

"Sorry," I apologised to her with a smile as well.

Roana then translated a more proper version of my assurance to the chief. A growing smile broke out on his face as she did. He then seemed to speak warmly, even enthusiastically to me, as he first shook my hand, hard, then slapping me on the shoulder with an apparently warm welcome. Before Roana could translate his remarks to me, he then talked to her briefly, seeming to ask a question.

Roana smiled and looked down for a moment, in modesty or embarrassment, before replying to him with a few words as she moved closer to me.

"What's all going on?" I asked, looking at her.

"Okay," she sighed. "First he welcomes you warmly, even welcomes you home as a long-lost son of Berk, and is glad you share our commitment to the dragons now. He adds that we have so much needed a scientist like you to help them. He then thanked me for 'recruiting' you and bringing you here, and asked if we are truly mated."

"I just said I loved you," I whispered aside to Roana. "That, along with the nudge of your dragon and all the cheering, isn't good enough for him?"

"He's getting old, okay? And maybe he was not around to see that," she whispered back. "Just answer the question."

I sighed, but strenuously avoided shaking my head for fear of giving him the wrong idea or insulting him. "Yes," I then formally answered as I looked at him again, "Roana and I are mated." I was realizing that even Berkers seemed to have their own versions of quirky and even bureaucratic customs.

She translated my assurance, smiling and glancing at me as she did. The chief then spoke to her again, looking at me occasionally. Roana seemed to answer him with one word, before he continued speaking to her. Then, she just gave him a look of amazement, before taking a deep breath as she turned to me.

"Alright, this is . . . unusual," she said, searching for the right English word. "He first asked if you were indeed a son of Hiccup and Astrid. I said yes you were. He then offered to hold our mating feast in Old Berk village . . . the first time that has ever been done. Most everyone here, and many Outside Berkers would come to Old Berk to attend. It would be a huge event, perhaps the biggest our people have had in our history."

"Wow," I noted, now somewhat taken aback myself. "We're that important?"

"You, what you represent as a returning Ýsa, and what you can do are," she replied. "Plus we have friends on the outside now who can keep the curious away from that island, for at least one day; so a growing number of us have been looking for a suitable occasion to return. Now, you and I are providing it."

"What do you think we should do?" I then asked Roana, still with an arm around her.

"It is up to you as well as me," she sighed. "But it is an honour I do not think we should, or really can, refuse."

"Then, as long as you agree," I replied, "we should accept. Please tell him that I, and you if you like, are grateful and humbled." Then I moved closer and whispered in her ear, "But could we celebrate before then?"

She looked down for a second and really smiled, before glancing at me and then trying to straighten her face to translate our first shared decision together.

"Þat er okkr heitr at samþykkja," she replied. A cheer went up from the crowd as soon as Roana had uttered her words.

"You know, you people do stage things, too," I gently noted.

"We know it is an after the fact celebration though, and not the real event itself," she countered. "But . . ."

"But what?" I asked.

"Grunt," she then whispered in my ear.

I just had to kiss her now . . . hard.


	10. Chapter 10

While pretty much everything, and I mean everything, had now been decided—there was a sad duty to be attended to first.

Roana and I joined in as everyone else turned and went just beyond the village to the foot of the valley, at the top of some sea cliffs and rocky outcroppings, where a Night Fury was standing in front of Blóm and her mate, waiting for the rest of us.

"That other dragon is our Guardian of Memories," Roana quietly informed me as we approached. "By tradition, this guardian is always a Night Fury, preferably female as mothers traditionally passed this knowledge down to their offspring, although males sometimes accept this role. While Toothless became both Great Guardian and Guardian of Memories further along in the journal than what you say you've read so far, these two roles have been separated since his time. This guardian however is our main teacher, spiritual advisor, even something akin to a Jewish rabbi. She knows all our legends, spiritual traditions and stories. Chiefs have usually led our funerals, but this Chief and our Great Guardian have chosen to defer to her on spiritual matters, which funerals are, so she now leads our funerals instead. The three of them together though, sometimes with advice from others of us, make our most important decisions."

"Two dragon votes to one human?" I wondered as I looked on.

"We do not look at it that way," she replied. "Besides, their decisions are never less than three to nothing. They discuss an issue until they all agree on it. You need to start looking at the dragons as indistinguishable from us though. They are us. We are them. There is really only us here. The only them exists on the outside."

"I understand," I sighed with some reluctance, realizing I was going to have to make some mental adjustments along with my lifestyle changes now.

"Lance," Roana whispered in my ear though, "I love you."

Darn if she didn't make me crack a smile with that one.

"I love you, too, Roana," I quietly replied. The husband, the mate in me was already kicking in. I always answered 'I love you's.'

Everyone was assembled now, falling silent as the Guardian of Memories began . . . humming.

"This is how dragons pray," Roana quietly explained to me. "Human funerals have words, but dragon funerals, in part because of the still somewhat differing dialects among dragon species, usually do not. This singing of theirs is their universal language, one that we humans can easily share with them as well, even you."

I gently smiled again as Roana and I began humming, while I worked to find the pitch they were humming at. The humming among the assembled crowd of dragons and humans now began to assume an ethereal, harmonious quality. As he hummed as well, Blóm's mate now picked me out in the crowd, locking eyes with me and motioning with his head.

"He wants you to step forward, and join him in giving life to his mate," Roana explained to me.

"But I can't bring her back from the dead!" I quietly objected.

"That is not what you are being invited to do," Roana assured as she now escorted me out in front of the crowd. "Just follow my lead."

She led me until we stood beside Blóm's mate as he looked at us. Tears were falling from his eyes as he now broke from humming and murmured.

"He is thanking you," Roana conveyed.

"But I didn't really do anything, not for her," I sadly noted as I looked at him.

"Kneel down and tell him you will do something for her," Roana requested. "That is what he is thanking you for."

I slowly dropped to my knees before this Night Fury. I found myself beginning to shed a tear with him as I looked into his eyes.

"I am so sorry about your mate, about Blóm," I said to him as Roana grunted a translation in Night Fury. "I will do something for her."

He glanced at her before grunting back to me. "He is saying, 'Blóm wants you to save our kind,'" Roana conveyed. "'You were uncertain, having difficulty with your choice. We could see that . . . we all could.'"

"You could?" I wondered.

"Do not interrupt him," Roana quietly cautioned me before she resumed translating his grunts. "He says, 'She wanted you to stay. She allowed death to take her, to help you make your choice . . . so that you would stay, for all of us. If you can help us, that helps me to accept her death, to give it meaning and a reason.'"

I dropped my head with regret, even shame. The dragon though moved his snout gently forward under my head. I embraced him, fully . . . feeling harmony, forgiveness, even love, like I never had before. He murmured again as I held him.

"He invites you to formally meet his mate, as this was her final wish in this life," Roana interpreted. "He will give you a fish to lay in her open mouth, as he will also. This is called 'giving life', the giving of sustenance from one being to another, and was originally performed by dragon fathers as mothers had to stay and incubate eggs on their nests. That is still done, but it has grown to become the most reverent act among dragons, and between dragons and humans—in life, or in death."

The Night Fury then half closed his eyes and began regurgitating as I moved back a little.

"Hold out your hands in front of his mouth," Roana advised as she knelt down next to me.

I did as she asked, and the dragon soon deposited a slimy, half-digested fish into my hands.

"Now lay it in Blóm's opened mouth," Roana coached. "And as you do so, say something to her . . . from your heart. She will hear."

I turned on my knees, with the fish in my hands, towards Flowers as I just preferred to think of her as. "Flowers," I sniffed, pausing for a moment. "I'm sorry you felt you had to die to get me to make up my mind. I'm sorry we didn't really meet in life. I wish we had. You should have just told me that way, by talking to me. But now . . . I will do everything I can to save your kind. I swear."

I gently laid the fish inside her open mouth, and then laid a hand on the side of her head for a moment, before moving aside.

"Stay where you are," Roana quietly suggested as we both remained on our knees. Flowers' mate then regurgitated another fish, laying that also in her mouth. He then grunted some more.

"He says, 'It is time to say goodbye to her body now, and to our child within her,'" my mate conveyed as we then rose together while the humming around us continued. "Lay a hand on his head in support as he fires a blast that will cremate her. Then, as her body burns, face upward and roar as we all will, heralding her journey to Spirit."

"I really don't want another of her kind to die like this," I said, turning to Roana as I laid a hand on the side of the male dragon's head.

"I know," she replied taking my other hand as the Night Fury then fired his blast.

As a Nightmare and Nadder reverently added their sustained fiery blasts upon Blóm's body from either side of the Guardian of Memories as well, both the Guardian and every other dragon and human in the crowd then turned their heads skyward and roared—just roared at the top of their lungs. As I lifted my head and roared as well, I felt a new presence within me . . . a primal, dragon presence. I was one of them, one of us, now.

As I looked down again after the roaring diminished, I saw there was nothing left of Flowers' body but an oblong mound of fine ashes that were already cooling.

"Take a small amount of her ashes in your hands," Roana suggested, "and help the winds set her free," as she proceeded to bend down and do that herself, with me following her. "Don't worry, they are not too hot at the edges here, just warm . . . like she was." We each gently scooped up some of Flowers' ashes in our cupped hands. I then watched as Roana tossed her handful of ashes high into the air as they then floated out beyond the cliff. I looked at the small mound of bone fragments and ash in my own hands as tears leaked out of my eyes.

"Let her go," Roana gently encouraged next to me.

I then flung my own handful of ashes high into the air as well. I could almost feel Flowers flying away towards the heavens as I watched her ashes hang and drift in the air now. I looked down at the powder residue that remained in my hands. As I was about to wipe them clean though, Roana stopped me, taking one of my ash-covered hands in her own.

"Let part of her remain with you for a while," she quietly encouraged. "It is what we do here in accepting the death of another . . . a symbol that they are both gone, but also with us still; that who they were has touched us."

I smiled at the beauty, and wisdom, of the ways of these people, even tribe, that I was becoming a part of now.

Flowers' mate joined in, gently touching his snout to some of her ashes, before blowing them into the air. Her other friends and well-wishers now gathered to do the same behind us. The male Night Fury then grunted and nodded, before spreading his wings and taking off into the sky himself.

"Where's he going?" I wondered as I looked up.

"I do not know," my mate replied as she looked up as well. "He didn't say. He just said, 'Thank you.'"

"So, what do we do now?" I asked, still somewhat absorbing all that had just happened as others began bidding farewell to Blóm, tossing or blowing small amounts of her ashes into the air while we turned and left.

"Normally, after a funeral, we do something the departed would want us to do," she responded, continuing to hold my ash-covered hand with one of hers as we walked now. "So, what do you think Blóm would want you to do?"

"Why was she called Blóm or Flowers?" I asked.

"Because she loved the flowers that grow around us here in spring and summer," Roana answered. "She could hardly pass a flower without looking at it and sniffing it. The children she grew up with came to nickname her that, and it just stuck. She happily took it as her name among us. She was one of the happiest, most optimistic dragons, even beings, that I have ever had the pleasure to know as a friend."

Tears welled up in my eyes again. "Why did such a happy dragon have to die?" I sadly wondered.

"To save you," Roana assured, laying an ash-covered hand over my heart, " . . . from the outside world. She wanted you not just to save her kind, but to know the life of happiness she enjoyed here."

"How do you know?" I asked.

"Because Blóm and I talked, while you and I were apart," she replied. "She assured me she knew that you would want me, and said that if she wasn't carrying the egg and child she was, that she would fly me back down herself and want to meet you. She made me promise to introduce you to her before the end of your first day here."

"You can't do that now though," I sadly noted. "And the way we met in life, with her in such pain . . ."

"Nu uh," Roana countered with a smile. "That wasn't what she wanted, or how she would want to meet you. More than anything, she wanted to welcome you here," she gestured with her arms spread wide and spinning around now, "to your new home. So, for Blóm . . . welcome home, Lance. She would want you to get a good look around, so let's go on a hike beyond the village, alright? You'll get to enjoy what she loved most in life that way . . . our flowers."

"Okay," I tearfully smiled as Roana took my hand once more.

"Look," she was soon pointing out, "Bluebells. These were Blóm's favourites, especially the deep purple and fragrant ones. Go ahead," Roana invited, "sniff them like she did." I smiled as we both bent down on our hands and knees to sniff the fragrant flowers.

I paused though as we sat up on our knees again, just looking at the flowers for a moment. "You ever take time to sniff flowers like this, back where you came from?" I heard beside me, as I noticed even Rökkr was now sniffing the flowers as well. I just quietly shook my head, closing my eyes.

"Blóm," I finally said. For a dragon, a being I'd hardly met . . . she was now having a profound effect on me as I looked at her favourite flowers again. I felt a kiss from Roana on my cheek as her arms warmly encircled me from the side. She was feeling it, too.

"Would you have felt this if she was still here?" I was then gently asked. I had to shake my head 'no' again. "This is why she left . . . her gift to you. So you would look at this place, and everyone here . . . and be changed, becoming who you were meant to be with us. I didn't want her to go. I tried so hard to save her. But I will accept what she is giving now . . . to both of us."

Roana now broke down in quiet tears as she held me tightly from the side, as I held her, tearing up as well. Finally, she looked up at me, and we kissed. So much had happened now. My heart, my entire being felt like it was in flux . . . like I was changing from a sad, lonely caterpillar of a man, into the butterfly of a mate, and a Berker as well.

"Come," Roana then invited after kissing me a second time. "There is still more you should see before the day is out."

"More?" I wondered.

"Come see," she smiled, drying her eyes and standing up again extending her hand to me.

"Roana . . ." I could barely say as she helped me back to my feet and I drew her close once more while Rökkr watched beside us.

"I love you, too," she smiled, before kissing me again and encouraging me to resume walking with her. I could only smile with fresh tears in my eyes as I held her tightly with one arm, kissing the side of her head in gratitude. The three of us then turned to go up the valley this time beyond the other end of the village. A crowd soon gathered around us again and proceeded to follow us up the valley.

"Roana, why are people still following us?" I asked as we now walked.

"Well . . ." she hesitantly confessed, "in addition to everything else, we are of historic importance to all of Berk, as we are breaking a separation that has existed since the time of Hiccup . . . and Ruffnut."

"No way," I said, remembering what Hiccup wrote in the journal about he and Ruffnut. "Their families have never intermarried before?"

"Not within our community here anyway, that we know of, at least among direct descendants within family lines," she explained. "It might be silly, really—but for a long time over the intervening centuries, our predecessors took the journal seriously . . . likely far too seriously. Ýsas and Johannsens must have certainly been interested in each other, but no one seemed to feel they were worthy to cross the divide that Hiccup and Ruffnut had come close to, but refused, for obvious reasons, to cross themselves. It was long viewed as almost a sacred divide here. The longer it lasted, the more people seemed to want it to continue. We . . . you and I . . . are basically bringing an end to something that has lasted almost a thousand years."

"You think we're worthy?" I asked, half joking, but half serious as well, looking at her as we walked arm in arm.

"Oh yeah," she confidently assured, before kissing me again.

"You're my mate," I said in wonder as we ended our kiss.

"Uh huh," she smiled.

"Wow," I could only say, keeping an arm around her now as we looked forward and began walking through the grass up the valley again.

We soon paused at the World War II battle memorial. Whereas in the past, I hadn't paid much attention to various memorials and monuments I'd encountered, I was looking at this reminder of a sad event differently now. The villagers were honoured that I knelt and prayed in front of it, joined by Roana. I could tell she was very proud of me when we got up again.

"That opponents, who fought and killed each other, could now rest in peace together . . . and by doing so, bring healing and harmony to the living," I told her, "that's something. I just felt I had to thank them, all of them."

One woman close to my age now approached me and began speaking in Old Norse with what I now presumed was the heavy Berker accent.

"This is Helga Roffenstein, daughter of a Nazi pilot," Roana explained. "She thanks you for pausing at this memorial, because both her father, and her maternal grandfather and several uncles and aunts died in that battle, fighting on opposite sides. Her mother was killed in the crossfire, trying to stop the bloodshed among her own family. Their family's dragon, a young male Night Fury, saved Helga's life, shielding her from both bullets and blasts . . . before killing her father directly with a blast."

I just moved to embrace this woman. I felt Roana lay a hand in warm approval on my back as I did, and also felt a Night Fury come and nudge against me. But I sensed it wasn't Rökkr.

"This is Frelsari or 'Saviour', Helga's dragon companion," Roana introduced as the Night Fury now looked at me.

I felt the need now to just lower myself to my knees and bow slowly and deeply towards the dragon, silently honouring him and the incredibly difficult thing he had done. When I looked at him again, Frelsari just slowly blinked his eyes and subtly nodded in grateful acknowledgment.

"Despite his young age at the time, Frelsari was offered the position of Great Guardian, even Chief, after the battle," Roana quietly explained to me, "the highest positions and honours anyone can have among us. But he refused both titles, saying that Helga would be his life and life's work. Neither he nor Helga have ever wanted to bond with anyone else besides each other. But they have both had children independently with others, choosing to bring them into their family after birth or hatching with the other parents' consent."

I now noticed a young girl draw close to Helga as a young Night Fury joined them in front of me as well.

"A family," I quietly recognized.

"Yes, a family," Roana confirmed as she drew beside me. "And a very close one among us."

The love emanating among the four of them was more palpable than anything I had ever felt from a family before.

"Few if any would understand this on the outside," I quietly said, glancing at Roana.

"This is why we are here," she gently replied as we both looked at them again. "Hann dáist at ykkr," she then said to the blended family before adding to me, "I just told them that you admire them."

"Yes, I do," I quietly confirmed as I nodded at Helga again, knowing she couldn't understand any words I might say. Her own tears now said it all though. There was a quiet but warm silence around us as this happened.

"You _are_ of Berk," Roana said in deep admiration herself as she turned towards me, laying a hand on my heart.

I just nodded in acceptance. This was my home, and these were my people now.

— — — — —

Roana and I then walked a little further, before I paused in front of the far older Dragon Island memorial stone nearby as well to read its centuries old inscriptions, which had crystallized everyone's purpose and mission here. As I touched it, I felt what seemed like the souls of a thousand dragons, and the hundreds of soldiers that had killed them only to be killed themselves, all with a surprising forcefulness. I touched my forehead to the tall, weathered stone, and quietly wept . . . even though I had not yet read the story in the journal. I felt it, I felt it all.

I also felt Roana embracing me from behind and laying her head against my shoulder, as well as a number of other hands and snouts now touching me as well. I turned and took Roana back into my arms. She kissed my neck, my jaw, and finally my lips as I kissed her back. Not a word needed to be said between us in that moment as I held her tightly and buried my face against her hair.

We then visited the Founders' memorial stone, commemorating Hiccup, Astrid, Toothless and Fury. To see a tangible reminder of those I had read about in the journal, it was something. Plus to me, they were family. That I was descended from this family, across the span of almost a thousand years . . . it just awed me. How could I have thought of living anywhere else, even earlier today?

Several dragons of differing species then approached me, murmuring.

"They invite you to follow them," Roana conveyed enigmatically.

Not knowing what to expect, I did, as she walked with me and the other villagers followed. Soon, we came to the mouths of a couple caves at the base of a mountainside that had wisps of steam gently coming out of them.

"These caves are where dragons who are not bonded with humans live—the other half of our village, if you will," Roana noted, as one of the dragons, a two-headed Zippleback motioned inside with one of its heads. "He's inviting you inside to take a look," she conveyed.

"They certainly live differently in here," I remarked as I stepped around some boulders at the entrance. "Much more crowded," I added, seeing dragons of various types covering most every surface in the cave.

"Well, despite legends, dragons don't have much of a need for possessions," Roana smiled, looking on with me, "and they certainly don't need to hoard gold or treasure. That was spread by outsiders to further encourage the hunting and killing of dragons. Besides, remember they're cold-blooded reptiles who need warmth. Unlike us, a dragon here will never know what it feels like to be alone or abandoned. They actually feel somewhat sorry for us that we live isolated in houses the way we do, and will invite a human who is feeling sad to stay with them at times, although any of us are always welcome. A few humans have even lived here for a while, but find they like things like chests to store clothes in, as well as places to cook and bathe and the like. Anyone who lives here though lives as the dragons do, with nothing more than nests, and touching each other basically all the time. It is regarded as a high calling among the dragons however to spread the companionship and even love they take for granted here, and choose to bond with humans and live in human houses. That is why those of us who bond with a dragon companion normally sleep beside them, because they give up this to live with us."

"Will I take a dragon companion of my own? Be expected to?" I wondered, looking around.

"That will be your choice, and the dragon's, in time," she softly answered.

"Why are you whispering?" I quietly wondered, turning to her.

"Because, your dragon companion could also be Rökkr's mate," she continued as I glanced, noticing that Rökkr was just a few feet behind us, looking our way. "Such a thing is complicated though, and has to be approached and handled carefully, for all concerned."

"I can see that," I sighed, looking around again. But then I felt moved to go to Rökkr. "Rökkr," I asked as I knelt down next to his head, "do you miss this?"

Roana laughed behind me as Rökkr murmured. "He says, 'I was hatched in a human house,'" she translated, "'as generations of my family have been for countless moons.'"

"Wait, you mean . . ." I wondered.

"'I am a son of Toothless and Fury,'" he confirmed through Roana translating, "'by Miracle's line. All of my kind are of Toothless and Fury to some extent. It is both an honour, but also the source of our problem. It is why we need you . . . Lance.'"

"I understand," I replied as I looked to one side, realizing the size of the task in front of me now—the work that would likely consume the rest of my life. "All these other dragons, too," I noted as I looked around the cave again. "Every single one can likely easily trace a common lineage to every other of its species."

"Not today, my love," my Roana assured me, knowingly reaching to rub my shoulders as Rökkr nudged me as well.

"I can see why you all need me though," I noted, "even needed to trap me here."

Rökkr murmured as he nudged and looked at me. "He says, 'Companionship and love,'" Roana conveyed for him, "'should never be looked at as traps. Otherwise, my line has been enslaved for a thousand years . . . and we certainly have not been.'"

"You know," I sighed, looking at him, " . . . you're right."

Roana smiled, offering me a hand as I stood up again and we briefly embraced. But then, as I turned to leave, a strange thing happened. Every single dragon around me in the cave was now bowing its head.

"They know who I am, too, right?" I guessed with a sigh as I looked around a final time.

"They also know you cannot speak their language and dialects," Roana noted, "but that you can understand their appreciation for you and your choice to join us when they express it like this."

That caused me to stop. I turned back, looking around at what must have been hundreds, perhaps over a thousand dragons, all trying to express something to me together. I decided to bend at the waist and bow low back to them as well. There was dead silence now, seemingly for minutes.

"You have made a thousand friends today," Roana gently said as I finally stood up again and she drew close to me, "just because of who you are, and what you did, right now."

I could only look at her, feeling deeply moved.

— — — — —

Soon, Roana and I were leading a veritable parade as dragons from the caves joined the rest of the village, and we all hiked up to the open top of a small mountain vista. We could have flown there I suppose, but I just wasn't thinking 'dragon' yet.

We all enjoyed the view of the valley and the setting sun to the west. After a while, Rökkr gently barked at Roana and I, gesturing with his head off towards the village.

"Rökkr would like to fly you and I home," Roana translated, "if you would not mind."

"How could I refuse family?" I warmly asked, truly embracing the spirit of my new home and life now.

Both Roana and Rökkr seemed equally moved at my words, as the dragon closed his eyes and nudged against me while my mate embraced me from the other side.

"This is home," I now tearfully sighed. "This. Is. Home." I openly accepted it all now, and allowed myself to be filled in ways I had never experienced before.

"Come," Roana finally said, wiping another tear from her eye as she took my hand. "Fly with us."

I gladly went with her to mount Rökkr . . . until I noticed something was missing.

"Do not worry," she added as she noticed my expression, "Rökkr will be extra careful with us since he is not wearing his saddle. Just grip his neck tightly with your legs, hold onto me, and he will keep us balanced on top of him."

"I haven't even ridden a pony bareback," I noted with reservation as I reluctantly settled in behind Roana on Rökkr's neck.

"Trust your family," she assured as she looked back at me.

I smiled and nodded as I gripped both her and Rökkr tightly. "Go," I said.

With my one word, the dragon spread his magnificent black wings into the wind around us and gently lifted us all into the air. The edge of the mountaintop silently fell away beneath us, and I tried not to be scared stiff as there was less than ever before between me, and a very long drop to the ground now far below.

Rökkr gently banked us all, following subtle currents and eddies in the air as he now meandered with us over the valley.

"It is alright," Roana assured. "See? Even though we tilt and bank, Rökkr is keeping us perfectly balanced. He will not let us fall."

"This is like hang-gliding," I began to allow myself to admire, allowing my leg and arm grips to relax . . . just a little.

"I have done hang-gliding," she said. "Did it in college. This is better. You are flying with a living, thinking being—not just a metal and nylon thing."

I briefly looked behind me to see the sky now filled with other dragons and riders taking to the air as well, also enjoying a sunset glide.

"It is moments, experiences, like this," Roana noted as she looked around with me, "that make everything worthwhile for us here."

"And no one else gets to see or experience this," I admired, feeling deeply privileged at this spectacle now.

"We drug them if they do," Roana smiled, "or it is a deep, dark secret in some satellite control centre."

I now allowed myself to be just overwhelmed at the serenity and harmony of it all as we continued to bank and glide silently with the winds, surrounded by a bright red sky and deep green and grey mountains.

"I am not going to be missing anything now," I said. "I have found heaven here."

"It is why I returned," Roana agreed. "You were the only thing missing for me."

I just brushed Roana's thick blonde back braid to one side and proceeded to deeply kiss her neck. My arms firmly enfolded her as I loosened the grip of my legs around Rökkr's neck somewhat.

"This is my dream . . . coming true," Roana breathed as I could sense her closing her eyes. I was making love to her in the air as the dragon flew on with us. She then turned her head and kissed me forcefully as she reached and gripped the back of my own head with her hand. I no longer held myself back as I kissed her, gripping her torso and free arm more tightly. It was suddenly the most passionate experience I had ever known. I barely even noticed as Rökkr pulled us through a complete vertical loop with Roana and I still securely seated on his neck.

"I am soaring with you," I whispered as I continued to kiss and almost inhale her, "in more ways than one."

"I know," she softly replied.


	11. Chapter 11

Eventually we and the other villagers gently spiralled down into the valley as the sun set beyond the island. Each of us now landed in front of our homes, with the cave dragons peeling off in the air towards their homes again as well. It was all incredibly peaceful and quiet.

As other dragons and their riders landed around us, Rökkr smoothly brought Roana and I down in front of the house the three of us would be sharing from now on, walking with his paws a little as he touched the ground, so that I could hardly tell just when we touched down. Roana shared some final kisses with me as Rökkr now looked back towards us for approval.

"Go ahead," my mate encouraged. "Tell him how he did. He wants to know."

"Rökkr, it was incredible. And the landing, it was oh so smooth . . . like . . . like Mead Tea," I said, reaching for a good, local compliment, even though I hadn't tasted any yet, and just had the journal's descriptions of it to go by.

The black dragon really seemed to smile at my words as Roana and I dismounted from him.

"He is going to want to share his bucket of it with you for that," Roana warmly cautioned beside me.

"I don't mind," I smiled. "I'll even drink with him, right out of the bucket."

Rökkr grunted his approval with an even bigger smile.

Roana now smiled herself, kissing me again before we stepped up onto the porch together and she opened the front door as we looked inside. "I knew it!" she then said. "Dinner is already made for us."

"You're gonna have to let me thank those neighbours soon," I advised as I embraced her from behind again, as we both now admired the spread laid out, complete with candles . . . on the floor no less.

"We will," Roana gently replied, "together. But," she then added as we walked inside with Rökkr closing the door behind the three of us, "here is the celebration you wished for, just for us."

"Roana," I sighed as I looked at her and the evening of romance that was now ahead for us. "Heaven, Round Two . . ."

"Allow me to change, would you?" she gently said as she now slipped out of my embrace while giving me a very beguiling look.

"You are gonna just devastate me," I replied, "whatever it is you're going to wear."

"Uh huh," she agreed.

"But hey, no fair," I smiled. "I have nothing to change into."

"Ohh yes you do," she countered with a devious smile. "As I change, behind that screen over there, I want you to change into those white cloth night pants again, and that leather vest over there."

"No tunic?" I noticed.

"Not this time," she enticingly confirmed. "I am looking forward to seeing you as a real Berker . . . my idea of one anyway. But don't forget, while I am changing, you must honour your pledge to Rökkr, and drink his Mead Tea with him."

"I think I remember where the bucket and the tea are," I noted with a smile.

"See you shortly," Roana smiled as she now traced a finger of hers down my lips and across my chin. I all but collapsed right there.

Fortunately, I was able to look beside me, and see Rökkr just smiling at me with approval.

"So, buddy," I said, "you think I'm making your person happy?"

Rökkr grunted and nodded his head. 'Oh yes,' he seemed to say. He then nudged against me with his eyes closed.

"What is it Rökkr?" I asked, not knowing the reason for his nudge now, but recognizing it was important among dragons.

"I have read the journal in English with him at times," Roana chimed in from behind the screen a short distance away across the house. "That is how I taught him the language. You just called him 'buddy'. That is the English equivalent of a hallowed word of affection and bonding among dragons and humans that Hiccup often addressed Toothless by. You could not bestow a higher compliment or honour to a dragon, especially a dragon family member."

"I did, didn't I," I realized as I now laid a hand on Rökkr's head as he continued to nudge me. "I meant it, Rökkr," I assured him as I now knelt down in front of him. "You are already family to me, and I can't tell you how happy that makes me."

I now embraced his head for the first time, as he closed his eyes again and nudged me, too. I could sense Roana looking around the edge of the screen at us, but not wanting to intrude on this moment of bonding between Rökkr and I.

"Let me get your tea," I finally offered to him, as I arose, picked up his bucket, and went over to dip it in the cauldron of simmering tea. Even the tea's aroma was pleasant.

"Here," I offered as I then came back and set the bucket down in front of him.

But Rökkr shook his head, grunting and gesturing with his head between me and the bucket.

"Oh, you want me to go first," I surmised. "Alright . . . like this?" I asked, now lowering my head to the bucket.

Rökkr grunted and nodded with approval as he waited for me to take the first sip. I just lowered my chin and lips into the tea and drew it into my mouth, getting a little of it up my nose in the process. Managing to stifle any coughing though as a little of it almost went down my windpipe by accident, I looked up with a smile as the tea dripped off my chin. "I can see why you dragons like this," I honestly admired. "It's good!"

Rökkr seemed to gently roar a 'yeah' in response, before gesturing with his head over towards the clothes that had been laid out for me.

"Don't want me to disappoint your lady, eh?" I smiled.

"No he does not," I heard a voice say from behind the nearby screen.

"Alright, alright, I'm changing," I smiled as I now unbuttoned and stripped off my shirt. "But how did these clothes get laid out for me? You were with me all day."

"The neighbours," I heard Roana smile from behind the screen. "They know I have been openly courting you. They are just helping."

"I am gonna have to thank those neighbours!" I sighed as I heard her laugh.

"I am done, and waiting to show you what I changed into," she then said, urging me to hurry up.

Finally cinching up my indoor pants around my waist while remembering to remove my socks, and after straightening my new leather vest but finding I could not bring it closed in front of me, or that there were even any laces or straps on it to fasten it with . . . I finally just gave up and announced, "Okay, I'm ready."

"So am I," Roana said alluringly as she emerged from behind the screen.

I could only gaze at her, as Rökkr glanced between the two of us with a clear look of approval on his face, as I briefly glanced at him from the corner of my eye.

Roana, too, was now wearing a similar leather vest with nothing underneath it, along with an almost gossamer white skirt that loosely hung from her hips to her bare ankles and feet, secured by a light gold and leather belt around her waist that had small jewels and pendants on it. The long tooth on its leather strap was still around her neck, and I had a difficult time ignoring where that tooth rested on her within that partly open vest. Her head was now adorned with a small gold chain that had a ruby of the deepest red gracing the middle of her forehead. Her braids were gone. Her long, golden hair now hung loosely about her shoulders. She looked like a Norse princess, even a goddess. And she was coming right towards me with a look of desire, even deep determination, that I had never seen in a woman before.

"You are entering our family now," she said as she stopped and stood in front of me, seeming deadly serious. "We live together. We would die for each other. We hold nothing back. Rökkr knows I want to consummate my union with you, in the most sacred way imaginable. For his sake, we will eat first. Then, it will be our time to bond . . . to mate.

"Know now that I am taking a mate just once," Roana then clearly warned, "truly bonding and joining with you, for life. I am already defending that decision, that bonding, with my life . . . even my death. That is how sacred true mating is to us. Not all of us make such a resolve here in Berk, but that is what I want ours to be. It is a choice each of us has freely made; but now, I choose to make it a hard, irrevocable fact . . . forever. That forces us to work things out, and not leave anything standing between us. I ask you, from my soul, to choose that level of mating with me as well. Love now, between us, is not this mere feeling that comes and goes . . . but a certainty that will take us higher, deeper, and farther in life than anything else ever could. I will never leave you, as she did."

I briefly closed my eyes in silent, tearful gratitude as I faced Roana.

"I am a Viking, a Berk Viking," she declared. "And I will re-awaken the Viking within you tonight. That is a solemn promise. You will not be the same person after tonight, and neither will I. We will be mated, in every way . . . before the gods, before Spirit, before the Universe, and before each other. This is how the dragons have influenced us. This is their clarity and discipline—something that other humans do not know.

"So, if you have any remaining doubts," Roana concluded, "I suggest you tell them to me, and we talk about them until they are resolved. Otherwise clear them out of your mind during our feast here, as I want there to be room in you now only for me, as I give myself totally to you. This is what real mating is. Open your mind and heart to me now. Speak your thoughts to me before we begin," she invited. "Do not think—speak now."

Roana had laid down a sudden, stark ultimatum . . . the likes of which I had never experienced before. She reached for something truly primal in me.

"Speak! . . . Please?" she said.

"I am a Viking," I found myself saying to her now. "I am for the dragons, and I am of Berk. I am worthy of you, and you are worthy of me. We are equals, and always shall be. I reclaim all that I was meant to be. I celebrate our family coming together now, with you, and with Rökkr. I will mate with you, and never leave . . . never part. We will face and fight it all—without, and within—together, with love, and with dedication. That is my solemn vow . . . before the gods, before Spirit, and before the Universe."

I moved to kiss her, but Roana now held up a finger to my lips.

"Not yet," she said. "Kissing now initiates the rest of the mating between us, and once you kiss me tonight, I will not control myself after that. I will take you, and I will give myself utterly to you, and to us. So let us eat first . . . then we mate in the final way between us. After all," she cautioned, "we will need our strength."

I was just wonderfully dumbfounded at that, and shook my head with a smile at her.

"Too direct?" she now asked, seeming to return to her more familiar self. "Too 'Dragon' or 'Viking' for you?"

"No," I sighed. She could have told me she was going to kill me afterwards, and I would have been happy. "Before tonight though," I added, "if people had asked me what Valhalla was, I would have told them that it's an Old Norse myth. Tonight, Roana, with you . . . it's a real place, right here."

"Thank you, Lance," she replied appreciatively.

"Roana," I sighed as I held her now. "I don't know if I want to eat, if I can eat."

"Try," she suggested. "This is our mating feast . . . at least our private one, anyway."

"That just blows me away," I sighed again. "It's all a blur here, but such a wonderful one."

"A couple of college friends who got married when I was there, pretty much said the same thing about their weddings and wedding days," she noted. "We can do it again if you want. Actually, we kind of did just now."

"Yeah," I smiled as I just hugged her, "we did, didn't we?"

"You okay?" she asked.

"Roana, I am wow'ed," I sighed. "My world, my life, everything, has changed in just the past couple days. I never expected it, any of it."

"Where as I knew what was coming," she replied, "at least what I wanted to have happen."

"No fair," I said gently as I hugged her again.

"Grunt," she responded.

"Grunt," I softly said drawing her closer and just burying my face against the side of her head amid her long blonde hair, wanting to take her right then. "You know that completely disarms me," I managed to sigh.

"I had an idea," I felt her smile next to my ear. "But thanks for the confirmation. Let's eat though. Rökkr is waiting here. He's even just looking between us and his platter of fish."

I emerged from our close embrace and looked at Rökkr as he grunted and gestured with his head towards the spread laid out on the floor, then just nodding as Roana moved to my side and rubbed my partially bared chest with her hand. "Gotta feed the dragon," I smiled.

"You are doing so well, my love," she assured.

"Dragons, not to mention weddings that just happen, vows I can't even remember," I noted.

"Just let it settle in you," she suggested. "I have been living this way my whole life. But maybe stop putting important things like weddings into such neat little boxes. You outsiders seem to do that so you can lay them aside later, and even break those 'I do's' and vows, because they didn't occur in real life, but in tidy little ceremonies off to the side of life. This entire day has been our wedding to me. Our life together from here on will be our wedding to me. That is how you sustain love. That is how you sustain commitment. By making each and every day our wedding day . . . with some days big, some quiet . . . saying 'I do' all the time, not just on one day so you can say 'I don't', even through your actions, later."

"That's a different way of looking at it," I had to admit.

"That's the difference between marriage and mating," she replied. "Marriage puts too much focus on that beginning, on that one wedding day. Mating says every day is special, each in its own way. It asks you to look and consider, 'How will I marry my mate today? How will I give myself to him or her?' Just think how that would change marriage in the world. You would be so busy, enjoyably marrying your mate every day, that there would be no opportunity to distance yourself and divorce them."

"And it's wonderful," I accepted, drawing her to me again. "Even if it is just mind-bendingly hard for a now ex-outsider like me to take."

"Lance . . ." she sighed.

"What is it, Roana?" I smiled.

"I so want to give in to you right now," she replied, touching her bejewelled forehead to mine. "But would you do me a big favour and tell me to eat first?"

"Eat, my mate," I said with a smile. "Then take me, alright?"

"Yes, my mate," she accepted as she now parted from me.

"Wait," I noted. "Shouldn't we wash up? Our hands I mean. After all, we've still got dragon ash all over them."

"Mine are clean," she said as she looked down, holding her hands in front of her and turning them. "And I will bet yours are, too."

"They are," I agreed, noting with some surprise that the ash that had been covering them was now gone.

"The ash leaves us gradually, just like the departed naturally fade to an extent from our daily awarenesses," she added. "The ritual of both tossing the ash and leaving it on our hands, allowing it to fade away on its own reminds us of that."

"It does," I quietly said as I still looked at my now clean hands, marvelling at the beauty and the inescapable logic of it all. "This tribal wisdom . . ."

"Life here starting to look good to you now?" Roana gently smiled.

"Yeah," I sighed, shaking my head with a growing smile, "it is."

"Besides, ash by its very nature is sterile, Doctor," she added, drawing close and putting her arms around me again. "You of all people should know that."

"You really love this outsider idiot?" I smiled.

"Yes, I do," she confirmed as her hands roamed across my lower back. "You love this devious Dragon Berker who lured you here and trapped you for life now?"

"Utterly," I replied.

Our faces edged closer and closer to each other. "Careful," she then whispered, her warm breath now washing across my lower face. "No kissing for the moment, okay?"

"Yep," I regretfully sighed. "Don't want to be unleashing you quite yet, do we?"

"Not a good idea," she quietly agreed. "Eat?"

"Eat," I agreed as we reluctantly let go of each other. She then invited me with a gesture to sit down cross-legged on a couple cushions on the floor. "So this is how mating feasts go anyway?" I asked, sitting myself down and trying to return us to less enticing conversation.

"This is how I want ours to go," she replied.

As Rökkr began wolfing down a few raw fish, I couldn't help admiring Roana as she reached for some food herself.

"Go ahead," she smiled knowingly as I suddenly looked away. "Please look wherever you like. I like you looking at me, and I certainly enjoy looking at you."

"That, Roana, is a gift all by itself," I said accepting her offer gratefully as I now allowed my eyes to roam wherever they wanted to on her. "I have never beheld someone so beautiful, inside and out, ever."

"Not your typical North American woman?" she replied confidently.

"No," I agreed. "I wish I had come here, and found you first," I then sighed with regret.

"It is happening at just the right time," she assured, "for both of us. If you had come here years ago, I would have likely been studying in Washington State, and just beginning to learn how to connect with you in English."

"I could have studied Norwegian, even Old Norse, over here," I replied.

"Had you ever thought of doing that before now?" she asked.

"Nope," I sighed.

"See? It has all come together," she countered. "You needed to study biology, and learn and work where you were, for the dragons, just as I did, too. Besides, you would have never been able to find me, let alone get here, as we had lost touch with your branch of your family because they had changed your surname from Ýsa to Hyse."

"Do you know why they did all that?" I asked as I began eating.

Roana seemed to hesitate for a moment. "There were twin brothers in your family here a hundred years ago," she said, looking down. "Unlike some twins, these brothers were very competitive. It probably didn't help that they were fraternal twins, not identical, and apparently didn't look that much alike. Both were bonded with dragon companions when they were young, and became excellent Dragon Riders with their companions. Unfortunately, both also contended for village leadership when the old chief died, saying that an Ýsa should serve the village again. One was elected . . . the other was not. The dragon who was Great Guardian at the time offered his position to the other twin. But that twin, broken-hearted, refused. Your great grandfather not only left us for the outside, but for another continent, to Canada, cutting off all contact with us and changing his name somewhat. But even in the name he chose, he could not deny who he was completely.

"He is said to have cried uncontrollably though," she continued, "when he went through our mandatory village departure ceremony, and looked into the eyes of a dragon as that ceremony requires . . . the eyes of the Night Fury who had been his bonded companion. In an act of love and devotion this village still admires, his dragon loyally flew him to one of our contact points with Outside Berkers on the mainland that night. As much as he wanted to, that dragon—who was named Alltaf or 'Always'—knew he could not live with your great grandfather on the outside. And so, the dragon could only watch his beloved human companion go, leaving him behind as Outside Guardians left with your ancestor on horseback. As Alltaf later returned home alone, he soared high into the sky. Then, still wearing his empty rider's saddle on his neck, Alltaf dove at full speed into a seaside cliff of our island, before any of our Dragon Riders could stop him."

I could only glance across at Rökkr, as he looked sadly back at me while we both listened to Roana's story.

"Alltaf was suffering the same broken heart as your great grandfather," she sighed, "doubly so though as his person had left him. That your great grandfather was also a Revered One by birth, a direct descendant of Hiccup and Astrid, made it even worse. To a dragon, it was like being rejected by a god, or at least an admired hero. But, at the same time, to also be abandoned by the human companion he had sworn his life to . . . it all was a sadness, a divorce, even a shame, that no dragon had ever experienced here—one that no loyal, devoted companion could possibly know how to deal with. We have told our children Alltaf's story ever since, telling them that if they ever break a real promise, they hurt Alltaf the Dragon even more. So, virtually no one breaks real promises around here. He is partly why separation among mated humans or families here is so rare, and completely unthinkable among dragons. We all send love to Alltaf, even now, wanting him to feel better."

"My great grandfather never knew, did he?" I sadly asked.

"We are not certain," Roana quietly replied. "But anyone who loves a dragon would know what the breaking of such a bond would do to them. I think your great grandfather knew . . . somewhat, somehow. His stubborn pride, competitive ambition, and wounded spirit blinded him though."

"I was never told any of this," I said before I looked upward, now with a few tears in my eyes, and adding, "I'm sorry, Alltaf."

Roana just moved close beside me and gave me an approving kiss on my cheek. "Alltaf feels really good, now that one of his companion's descendants has apologised to him," she assured. "But I imagine that he and your great grandfather have made amends."

"You really are all one, aren't you?" I realized as I looked vacantly in front of me. "Past, present, everything. It's as you've said."

"Yes, my love," Roana gently replied. "I am glad you see that for yourself now. There is just real sadness in your family at times. I should not speak of it now however, especially during our mating feast."

"I'm sorry for asking," I apologised.

"You are the happy ending to all that though, Lance," she gently smiled, looking at me with a couple tears in her eyes. "Uncle was so happy one night when I visited him, saying he had found an Ýsa in America, that you were apparently just a little older than me, had just been going through a sad divorce, and that you were just the biologist we needed. He was saying how he had personally written you a letter and was waiting to hear back."

"What if I hadn't replied or called, or the letter got lost in the mail?" I queried.

"You would have found me paying a visit to you in America," she responded forthrightly, "and luring you to visit Norway."

"Really?" I smiled.

"Yep," she confirmed. "You were right in your conjecture during our walk on the beach yesterday though. We wanted you, both for who and what you are. Plus I wanted you for who you are inside, and what you have been through as well . . . at least from what our Outside Guardians had told us after checking you out."

"I've been watched?" I asked as I looked at her.

"Ever since my uncle found out about you, even before his letter reached you," she replied as I looked down. "We don't allow just any outsiders to come to this island and village. The man in the suit who noticed your nervousness and offered to switch your window seat for his aisle seat on the plane?"

"Yeah?" I reluctantly acknowledged.

"One of our Outside Guardians," she confirmed, "a descendant of the Great Gerhard of Berk. You've been under our watch and protection all that time. As I am the only English speaker here, and familiar with North American life and thinking, I was lucky enough to be allowed to try and win your heart, although several other women here wanted to try for you as well. Our three elders, both human and dragon, decided however that I alone should meet you. That you were staying at my uncle's inn probably helped. The other women initially objected; but once they were reminded this was 'for the dragons', that we all needed you to be convinced to come here, and this was best done by someone who could most easily talk and relate with you, and I was the dragons' doctor as well, the issue was settled among us."

"A trap," I sighed.

"A trap," Roana quietly agreed as she moved closer to me and gave me another kiss on the cheek anyway. "But one where there can be such happiness and love. I have meant every word . . . well, every positive one . . . I have said to you so far. It is simply an arranged marriage, along with an arranged life. You are back home now, Lance, where you would have been born and raised had your great grandfather never left."

"Half of me is still outsider," I sighed, looking down somewhat.

"We need that half of you," she warmly replied, "and I love that half of you, too."

"You do, don't you," I realized, looking at her. "You really do."

"Yes, I love you. Always," she said, fully aware of the added and perhaps double meaning. "But, Lance, I would not have been the mate for you I am ready to be now. To me, becoming a mate, a true mate, begins long before you actually meet the person you are to mate with. I have been becoming your mate," she said with a tear in her eye again, "for a long time. Now, and only now, am I ready for you."

"Roana, you humble me," I admitted.

"And your courage, openness, and heart, in the face of incredible change for you, humble me," she admired in turn. "The willingness to give up everything you have ever known, and even mate for life with a woman you have barely had a chance to meet and know—I am honoured to be with, and give myself to such a man . . . to you, Lance."

"Roana, if I might ask," I then queried, "given so little time together, and despite your apparent 'mission' to win me—how did you know I was right for you? That we were right for each other?"

"How did you know?" she countered. "But eat as you answer me," she invited as well as she took a roasted chicken leg while Rökkr wolfed down yet another fish across from us.

I smiled as I picked up the other roasted chicken leg and took a few bites. Her words made me think for a second though as I chewed.

"Thanks for asking that," I finally said as I looked back at her now as I took another bite of food.

Roana smiled and laughed amid her own bites at my acceptance of her now customary way of answering my questions or reservations, by getting me to answer first.

"I knew you were right for me because," I continued, "I encountered an angel, on the beach that night . . . a selfless angel. One I didn't want to be apart from after that. A woman who had indescribable love for me, and yet was willing to leave me space, even against the urges of her own heart, until I realized how much I wanted her. That's when I knew you were who I wanted."

"And I knew," she now answered, finishing a bite, "or I began to know, when I met a man who allowed himself to love and care so much, even when it had not been returned in kind to him, that he avoided me at first, rather than let me see the mess that another woman had cruelly made of his heart and spirit . . . using him, and then casting him aside. He ran away, because of me . . . even got himself stuck alone through the night on a beach, because of me. Even there though, he wanted to fix himself; before he eventually realized that the way he needed to fix himself was to let me in. That night I saw that he knew a pain, a longing for love, as I have. But to have the courage to realize, and to accept, what I could offer him, especially with so little time, along with my dragon never growling at him . . . that is when I knew that I was your mate, Lance, and that you were mine."

That was it. I wanted her, now.

I reached next to me for Roana's hand, and she willingly slipped it into mine. I held it firmly.

"Rökkr, if the woman I am mating with is finished eating," I said, briefly looking at Roana, "would you excuse her and I for the evening now?"

"You do not want dessert?" she asked.

"Ohh I'm gonna have dessert," I assured.

"I will not refuse you," she smiled, "but this is Rökkr's house, too. We have our area behind the screen over there. It is all ready for us, just the way I wanted."

"And you knew I'd just love it back there, the way you wanted?" I quipped.

"I will make sure you do," she smiled.

I could not help laughing, smiling and shaking my head at this incredible woman who was mine now, all mine . . . and who already seemed to know me, practically down to the depths of my core. That she had apparently spied on me, and even probably compiled and read dossiers about me, no longer seemed to matter.

"But, Rökkr," I said to Roana while recovering myself, "he's not even going to step outside for a while?"

"Dragons have been privy to, and yet guardians of, human intimacy for centuries in our culture here," Roana explained. "It is among the most sacred duties Rökkr can perform for us. Tomorrow morning, his roar outside our family's front door will attest and proclaim . . . through his presence, but not necessarily his witness . . . that you and I have sacredly mated, and that we are mates in every way, and not just in words or pledges."

"But not everybody does that?" I queried.

"No, some people just have a good time for the night and leave it at that," she answered, "what we call 'exploring'. A dragon would not roar the next morning for that. But that is not what we are doing."

"Sooo . . . we should be quiet, out of consideration for him tonight," I added.

"Not at all," she replied. "Rökkr expects us to roar. Dragons certainly do when they mate. It's the way he knows we really mated. If we were just having a good time, yeah, we should keep it quiet, out of respect for him. But real mating and roaring, it just goes together around here."

"What about subsequent times?" I couldn't resist asking.

"We don't want to be loud every time," she said. "He needs his sleep, too."

"This is complicated," I said.

"No, it is a mixture of custom and courtesy," she smiled.

"But wait," I hesitated. "Doesn't the village want to have its feast for us, and then have Rökkr announce we have made it 'official'?"

"How have I told you mating happens around here?" Roana queried with another smile.

"However the two partners involved want it to," I had to admit.

"Part of you thinks we still have to have the village's prior permission and endorsement to mate, don't you?" she observed. "That we can 'do it' but that we had better just keep it quiet before then, the way you all do on the outside?"

"Well . . ." I hesitated.

"Stop thinking 'Outsider'," she advised as she moved closer to me as we sat on the floor. "You are in Berk now. Think 'Dragon', the way we do here. We decide, and then it is, simply because we have decided . . . no seals, endorsements, writs, certificates, blessings, sanctions, or proclamations required. Decide what it is you want, and then allow it to be so . . . even with me. Then just stick with what you decide. That is what everyone here wants for you and I. Some villagers would even be embarrassed if they knew you were holding up something as important as mating, waiting on their approval, when they do not know you, or what is right for you. They would tell you that is not their place. Their place is to celebrate your decision, whatever it is . . . whatever feels most right, for you."

"So . . . they would celebrate us if we decided not to mate?" I asked incredulously.

"Not loudly, no," Roana said, trying to get through my thick head and my Outsider way of thinking, "and not together, all at once. Instead, if we told others we were not mating, they would individually congratulate us for doing what we felt was right, and offer us any help or encouragement we needed. They would invite each of us to dinner, or over for a drink of mead. It wouldn't be a big event, but they would still celebrate each of us, and what we each had decided. That is freedom. That is what we cherish. You Outsiders . . . many of you are so hidebound by customs, both social and religious, and by your fears of what others will think, that you have little or no real freedom at all to be who you want, or do what you feel is right for you."

"But what about morality?" I asked. "What about hurting others with actions that might feel fine to us, but may not be so good for them?"

"We _help_ those who feel hurt here, by anyone or anything," Roana said forcefully. "We really help them. If someone came to our door, right now, feeling sad . . . which they would, and have . . . I would stop what we are doing here and listen and help them feel better. That is what we do here. That is what Rökkr did for me on that hillside years ago. He saw I was crying and helped me in what he felt was the right way for me, and for him.

"We do not lay down rules saying, 'Do not mate until we say you are,' or 'Do not explore before marriage,'" she continued, "which many on the outside seem to ignore anyway. We guide and lay down rules for children, but we do not treat adults like children here, trying to control others so that we feel comfortable. We talk together and help each other to make the best decisions we can, the ones that are right for us. We do not wrong another here, because we will have to see them and work beside them every day afterwards. We, and others around us, make things right here, no matter what. There have been no murders or robberies or even assaults here since anyone can remember, aside from our one battle that was caused by outsiders with their twisted thinking. There certainly was a lot of all that once in Viking villages, but the peace and understanding we have now is what the dragons have brought to us. You tell me . . . who is more 'moral'?"

"You don't like the outside world, do you?" I quietly noted.

"I have never felt such isolation and sadness in my life as when I was there," she replied. "You fear each other out there. I tried to be as you say an 'angel' . . . helping people there as I did here. People just thought I and my ways were strange. Even you questioned me for being so nice to you at first!"

"We're just not used to that on the outside," I admitted. "I certainly wasn't seeing much of it within the last year. Coping on my own, guarding and protecting myself, not trusting strangers to be kind to me. It becomes a way of life out there."

"No more, Lance," Roana said, sadly shaking her head as she moved to embrace me, "not with me in your life now, and not with this village around you either. You will never be on your own like that, ever again."

I just looked down and sadly smiled for a moment, gently nodding in acknowledgement. "You're getting me to realize how rough it's been," I noted.

"It was hard for you," she empathized as she held me from the side.

"You're a real angel, Roana," I almost tearfully sighed as I looked at her. "Even better than the church minister I went to seek healing from after my divorce."

"I've seen your churches," she responded. "I went to a couple of different churches when I was in college, invited by friends. One seemed to worship God as some distant king. Another seemed to make God into a vengeful parent watching everyone and everything, who was all too ready to send people to Hell . . . which is a very nice place here in Norway, actually . . . for even the most minor of wrongdoings. Both just said to obey their teachings and I would feel good, even blessed. While some people seemed to there, I never did feel those things, not until I came home, and got over my 'mate' issues. Here, I felt blessed, and still do. Even close to Spirit, God if you will—through the dragons, and all the more so with you now. What my parents saw in the outside world, I never knew. But at least they had each other."

"Roana," I said, "I'm sorry for spoiling your evening, our evening, with my questions."

"No," she replied as she held me tighter. "No, Lance. Never be sorry for wanting to know, share, and explore with me, okay? It is alright, it is. I have strong opinions, even biases and hatreds. I do. I can be terrible at times."

"Really?" I smiled as I cradled and rocked her in my arms.

We both laughed, and gently kissed.

"Uh, oh," I cautioned. "You said kissing starts the mating between us."

"It does," she confirmed as she kissed me again. "But we still have to clean up here first. Rökkr certainly cannot do it by himself! Dragons simply burn things when they are done with them and want them out of the way, and I just don't want that here."

"You okay though?" I asked. "You seemed somewhat upset a moment ago here."

"I was upset," she confirmed. "Even upset for you and what you went through. But how do we learn things together if we do not share, even show, who we are and how we really feel? Hiding feelings and thoughts keeps them from being resolved, as does just focusing on ourselves instead of each other. But how are you feeling?"

"Still a little confused," I admitted with a sigh.

"You okay?" she asked.

"As long as I'm with you now, Roana," I assured.

"That is all I need to hear," she said gladly as she now proceeded to give me several kisses.

I kissed and held her back, hard. We breathed each other in deeply as we did.

"Lance, I want to give you my whole self," she said softly, "especially my undivided attention. Would you help me do that, by allowing us to clean this dinner up quickly?"

"Yes," I pledged with a smile as we pressed our noses and foreheads against each other.

"Thank you," she replied with a kiss as she then proceeded to get up, before offering me a hand up as well.

"Well, given that I'm not seeing a refrigerator here," I noted as I began picking up plates along with her, "where does the leftover food go?"

"Well, you can either carry it across to our village's electric cold room, and put it in the locker with my name on it," she explained, "or it can go on the front porch for other dragons to enjoy, who haven't bonded with a human family yet, or have chosen not to. This is our time of plenty. During winters, some still goes outside for them . . . or rather over to the thermal caves where they live. But we also store some in natural 'cold pantries' attached to the house that are open to the air. The door is right here, but it is too warm for that now. There is this other pantry door for fresh fish for Rökkr, but the fish only last a day in there during these warmer seasons."

"You had enough, Rökkr?" I asked, poised to take his platter and the rest of the food away.

He murmured and nodded affirmatively, adding a few grunts.

"He says thank you for asking, but that he's fine now, and ready to relax," Roana translated.

"Two days ago, this would have been impossible for me to accept," I sighed, doing my part in the clean up. "Now talking with a dragon, and even sharing dinner with him—it seems the most natural thing in the world."

"That is because this is the world you belong in," Roana assured as she passed me with a collection of our empty plates and cutlery en route to the washtub.

"You still ready to be my Norse princess?" I asked with a smile as I carried a tray of leftover food out to the porch.

"Oh yes, my Viking," she pledged, "most definitely! Blow out the candles, too, would you? And place them out of the way so none of us trip over them during the night. I will set aside some dessert cake for us to enjoy a little later here."

"Gee," I now said, once I had extinguished the candles and moved them out of the way, "how do we get back in the mood here? We started so primal, and then went back to being ourselves."

"I wanted those primal words up front," she replied as she dropped the last of the dinnerware into the washtub to soak before turning back around. "Because now is about acts, gestures and deeds . . . not words. But, because you have been an Outsider, I will give you an extra gift."

"What's that?" I asked, now looking at her again from across the house.

"One more chance," she said. "This is your last chance now to be free of me. Because I will not let you go after this, ever. I will force you to confront the most difficult parts of yourself, and ride out your ugliest truths with you . . . all of it, for life."

"Roana, that is one gift I'm gonna decline," I smiled, without even pausing to think. "I couldn't be free of you now anyway, even if I wanted to. You, and my love for you, would always be in my thoughts now. I would be taking you with me, no matter where I went in the world. Just give me you here. That's the only gift I want now."

"Even though it's a trap?" she asked.

"This trap is my home now," I calmly replied, "and you, Roana, are my mate."

"Then look at me . . . all of me," she now invited with an almost tearful smile as she slowly approached me again while running her fingers down her vest and parting it open just a little more. "And do what your heart, and the rest of you, tells you. I will do the same. I promise . . ."

I took Roana into my arms, savouring the sensations of the skin of her lower back against my bare forearms and hands. Her arms enfolded me around my shoulders, as she swept my vest off of them. I momentarily lowered my arms, allowing my vest to drop to the floor, before I enfolded her in my embrace again. I then proceeded to kiss her, letting all that I was now lead the way. That life could have this much love and passion in it now, that Christmas would be coming every day to me in the form of marrying my mate like this—I was sold, hooked, and happy . . . _very_ happy.

Amid the passion my mate and I were finally unleashing, I just couldn't resist taking one last sideways glance at the dragon in our household. Rökkr was already dozing over in his comfortable corner, with a knowing, and very satisfied look on his face.

I looked back at Roana, who had noticed where I had been looking.

"Has he ever . . . ?" I asked her as we kissed again.

"He has explored some . . . and he has enjoyed it," she gently replied.

"But no mate yet?" I reiterated.

"He just needs a little help," Roana whispered, "like males sometimes do, to ask her. Now that you are here, it is time. We will set up a dinner date for him soon, and help him."

"Just like that," I marvelled.

"Just like that," she confirmed. "Now, Lance, take me . . ." she invited, as she allowed the rest of herself to lead the way, too.

"Is there a bath involved?" I asked as we began intensely kissing again.

"Later . . ." she assured as she let go of her last inhibitions and restraints.


	12. Chapter 12

I awoke into what could only be a dream . . . but it felt so real.

I was on a plush mattress. The pillow under my head was filled with what felt like the softest goose down. I was under a nicely thick, soft quilt. But the best part was this warm presence who was spooning behind me with an arm gently draped across my side. I didn't want to move a muscle and disturb this smooth, warm presence. Heck, I didn't want to move an inch from where I was.

But I had to turn my head behind me and look, even at the risk of waking from this dream. So, I very slowly turned on the mattress and rotated my head. She was already awake herself, her head resting on the pillow behind me, looking at me with relaxed eyes.

"You're real," I softly said with delight. "This is all real . . ."

"Morning, Lance . . . my mate," she smiled.

"Roana . . ." I marvelled. "Come closer."

We took each other into our arms, and I savoured her . . . her smell, her touch, her warmth, everything . . . as she did with me as well.

"I have been waiting for you for a while now," she confessed as she moved to lay her head against my shoulder and chest. "I had not wanted to disturb you. But I felt I had to remain here, in our bed, to greet you this morning . . . slowly . . . and help you realize that yes, this is all real."

"Gods, I don't even want to get out of bed this morning," I smiled.

"Take your time," she invited as she lazily stretched herself across me now. "I will. Feel like a Berker this morning though? You're talking like one . . . saying 'Gods'."

"Must be you talking in me," I said, cradling her against me. "'Cause I certainly feel like I'm yours."

"Ohh you are, sir," she assured, snuggling even tighter against me. "You most definitely are. What else am I saying inside you?"

"Love," I instinctively replied. "Just love."

"I hope you're hearing and feeling that from me on your outside, too," she sighed.

"Oh I'm getting it in stereo, both within and all around me," I smiled. "But I love you, too, Roana. And I feel I owe you a bit . . . that I have some catching up to do, in terms of loving and caring for you."

"You are here, Lance," she replied, holding me close. "Mated with me now. That's all I want."

I just kissed her forehead as I continued to savour her presence against me. "Sounds like Rökkr is stirring," I then noted, hearing him groan and stretch. "Does he need to be let out?"

"He does that himself," Roana assured as she deliciously nuzzled my shoulder and neck some more. "We have lived with dragons almost a thousand years. Dragons have learned how to open doors, and we have learned how to make doors they can open."

"We've lived with dogs on the outside longer than that," I sighed, "and aside from little 'pop' or doggie doors that dogs use but we can't . . . that hasn't happened with us and dogs yet, although I've heard about a few dogs who can open doors, more as tricks than anything else."

"Dragons are more intelligent," she noted.

"Well, they do have a full language, so I guess that goes without saying," I agreed.

"By the way, do you have a dog or pet back in your old home that needs taking care of?" she then asked.

"My ex has the dog," I replied. "I was thinking about getting one for myself, but I won't worry about that now."

"So, would you like something hot, to wake you up slowly?" Roana offered. "I do not have coffee, but I have a tea that can stir you gently . . . with cream and sugar, English style."

"But with this floor mattress, there's no way to sit up and enjoy it in bed," I observed.

"We can move it against the wall behind us and stack pillows," she assured. "That is the nice thing about floor mattresses . . . you can put them anywhere. Some people here still have beds on frames, but I have liked sleeping with Rökkr most times. Sleeping with someone is soothing to me. I have never really liked sleeping all alone."

"I can understand that," I replied as I held her.

"But I had to get used to it in college," she noted. "I could not sleep beside a dragon friend there. Sharing a college dorm room was certainly something different. I felt so lost and alien there at first. Neither of the two roommates I lived with were ready to even contemplate living with dragons. They just thought I was a serious Viking/Dragon fantasy girl. Fortunately, I don't think I ever gave anything away, as I was probably just mumbling in my sleep in Norse."

"I never heard you, all night," I warmly assured.

"Thanks," she smiled before continuing. "At least I somewhat fit in with my Berk tunics though at times. People just looked at me as a serious 'back to nature' hippie."

"That's what I thought when I first saw you in the lobby at the inn," I admitted.

"Turned you off, huh?" she deduced.

"'Fraid so," I confessed. "I was a serious biology major back then, and just didn't like the whole counter-culture movement."

"So what do you think of me now?" she smiled as she held me close and looked at me.

"I am thoroughly loving you, Roana . . . just exactly as you are," I admired as I now kissed her forehead. "I love you, and your Berker ways—all of them now."

"That's my Lance," she warmly praised.

"But hey," I wondered, "what happened to the framed bed I saw when we arrived here?" I asked. "I'm not seeing it anymore."

"It was once my parents'," she replied. "I just borrowed it back from the neighbours when I knew I was going to try and bring you here. They must have taken it when they set up our dinner last night. But on the floor is the way I like to sleep."

"Then it's the floor for us," I concurred as I looked at her.

"It does not have to be," she assured as she looked back at me.

"New life, new ways, new arrangements," I said as I kissed her.

"Shhhhh . . ." she whispered with a smile. "Rökkr is opening the door now. Everyone is about to know what we did last night."

I heard the wooden door creak open, and then Rökkr's footsteps. Roana and I held one another tighter in anticipation. Then Rökkr let out a loud, distinctive roar . . . a good, long one.

My mate and I kissed at that moment in affirmation to each other, savouring that roar of his for us. We then smiled as we heard some people near our house cheer Rökkr's roar. Even some other dragons now roared back in response. The fact of our mating overnight was now a town event!

"The closeness, the unity here," I marvelled as I held Roana tightly in bed. "That even two people mating would be cheered and celebrated among a village. I like that . . . I love it."

"I am glad, my love," she assured.

I embraced Roana again tightly in joy for the miracle and wonder of life here that she was now revealing to me in full.

But then, the mood suddenly changed.

"Utanatkomandi!" we heard the cry, from several people outside, like an alarm was being spread.

"Outsiders," Roana said urgently as she now got up and rushed to dress. "You should see this . . . how we deal with it."

I now rushed to dress as well, reverting to my modern, outsider clothing for the time being.

With both of us just bucking our belts as we reached the front door, Roana and I soon emerged outside to see two Night Furies with riders landing, each with what seemed like a terrified backpacker in their extended claws. Two Nadders followed behind, also with riders, carrying a long kayak in their claws between them. They all landed on the grass in the centre of the village.

"Roana!" we heard from some of the villagers now.

"They are calling for me," she said. "These outsiders must speak English."

"I'm coming, too," I decided.

As soon as the kayakers saw me in my modern clothing, they seemed very relieved.

"Thank God!" one exclaimed. "Someone normal around here!"

"British," Roana noted next to me.

"No, Australian," I corrected her, "maybe New Zealander."

"They seem to be fixated on you," she added as she glanced between them and me. "You know them?"

"No, it's my clothing. It's familiar to them. Maybe I can help," I offered. "I know what the rules are here."

Roana smiled at me. "Go ahead," she invited.

"What in the blue blazes is going on here?" one kayaker then asked. "What kind of 'Land of the Lost' freak show is this?"

"You have entered a forbidden reserve," I answered now approaching them closer, "a place you are not allowed to be. We will return you to the outside."

"Too right there, mate!" the kayaker said.

"But hey, Mick, let's get some pictures," the other suggested. "The blokes back home will not believe this!"

One woman villager grabbed the camera away as soon as the kayaker produced it. Having evidently done this before, she just opened the camera back, stretched out the roll of film into the sun, rolled it back into the camera and closed it all up again, before tucking it back into the kayaker's backpack he was wearing.

"You can keep your camera," I noted, now stating the obvious. "But you are not allowed to know of this place, or these people. No outsiders are."

I could tell out of the corner of my eye Roana was pleased with my performance so far. The village chief was smiling at me as well. Even Árvekni seemed to have a pleased look on his face—well, at least in his eyes anyway. I was a Berker now though . . . protecting the dragons, and our way of life.

"And just how are you gonna make us forget all this?" the first kayaker asked.

"Memory drugs," I said. "The drugs, Roana," I requested, turning to her as I knelt down near one of them.

"Here you are, my love," Roana said, handing me a loaded syringe, along with an alcohol wipe and a small bottle. "It's a liquid bandage," she explained as I looked at the bottle, "to be applied after the shot. It blends in with the skin upon drying. It will both heal the injection point while concealing any evidence they have been injected."

"Wow, this stuff is still experimental in the U.S.," I noted.

"Still think we are primitive?" my mate smiled.

I just smiled back at her.

"Hey!" the kayaker I was with objected though. "Who are you, giving us shots?"

"I am a doctor," I assured, "a biologist, actually. And my mate, she's a veterinarian. But she knows what she's doing with humans, too. Roana, any questions you ask them?" I asked turning to her as both kayakers began struggling in front of us. "How they got here? Tips for the future?"

"No," she replied. "Once they get an idea of what is going on, it is usually best to dose them as quickly as possible."

"Then why bring them to the centre of the village?" I wondered. "Why not just dose them where you find them?"

"Dragons cannot manipulate syringes," Roana noted. "They can only grab the intruders. Plus, we've found it helpful to just surround trespassers here in the village, so they cannot escape before we dose them. We have had to chase a few down in the past."

"You know what you're doing," I had to concede yet again.

"Yes, we do," my mate smiled as she now prepared her own syringe for injection.

"Right," I then said, turning to the kayaker in front of me. "Just hold still, and you'll be back on the outside when you wake up, safe and sound."

"No! Wait!" the struggling kayaker now pleaded with growing panic as I quickly isolated a vein on his exposed arm, while other villagers were holding him down for me as Roana went to work on the other kayaker. I sterilized the surrounding skin of my kayaker's arm with the alcohol wipe, and carefully pressed the syringe needle into it without hesitation, depressed the plunger. The struggling kayaker was out almost immediately.

I withdrew the syringe, and after applying some liquid bandage over the injection point, I sat back on my knees, looking at the two sedated kayakers.

"I really am on the other side of all this now," I realized out loud.

"You are a Berker, my Lance," Roana admired proudly as she took the empty syringe out of my hand. "A true Dragon Berker."

The villagers erupted into applause around me as a number of dragons roared in approval as well. Some of the villagers then individually congratulated me in Old Norse, slapping me on the shoulder and reaching down to shake my hand. Roana just leaned against me, as we still knelt on the ground, embracing me from the side and giving me a kiss on the cheek. I was just processing all the change that had now occurred in my life, even inside myself.

"What happens to them next?" I asked.

"When they first awake from the drugs in about six hours from now," she explained, "they will be very open to suggestion. In this case, the Outside Berker lifeboaters we will be transferring them to will probably tell them they found them passed out on a beach, and saved them. As these outsiders smell like they have alcohol with them, the lifeboaters will empty most of the bottles and show them. It makes a convenient story that is believable to them. In ancient times, we just dropped outsiders on their own in a safe place and left them. We sometimes still do, but in this case, these kayakers will never be left alone. We could smash their kayak for effect if we wanted to, but why?"

Roana and I got up on our feet again and looked on as other villagers now placed the sedated kayakers into hammock-like nets for their journey back to the outside, then loading and strapping those nets down on the backs of the two Night Furies who had brought them. I could see that this was something that everyone had done many times before. It was routine.

Soon the four dragons were off into the air again with the intruders and their kayak, and life in the village returned to normal.

"Sorry for the sudden wake-up," Roana apologised. "But would you like breakfast?"

"Roana, I'm ready," I decided as I watched the dragons go. "I want to get back to the inn, get packed, and then get back here. I can't wait to start my life here now."

That made her cry. I teared up a little, too as I took her into my arms.

"Oh, and there's one more thing," I said as we held each other again. "When do we get our rings? I'm wearing one for you. I want to show everyone I'm mated."

"It was the one thing I did not dare take care of in advance," she confessed. "I really did not want to jinx things! But let's place the order with the metal smith together on our way back home to breakfast. He is right over there. I have a design of intertwined dragons that I would like to see on both of our rings . . . would you mind?"

"Sounds wonderful," I smiled.

"Lance . . . thank you," she tearfully smiled as she leaned against me.

"I love you, Roana," I admired, "and everything now."

Wild horses couldn't tear me away from this village, or from Roana, anymore.

— — — — —

Our ring order was soon placed. It was easier than at any jewellers' . . . and no charge, either! The metal smith even had enough salvaged or scrap gold just lying around!

"He will just want our help with his next house repair," Roana explained as we left, "and have us help deliver the next egg of his family's Nightmare. She has produced a healthy daughter so far, but had problems expelling the egg last time. I will be glad to have your help on that . . . but what is it, my love?" she asked, noticing the smile on my face.

"Helping a dragon give birth . . . lay an egg," I marvelled. "Just one of the incredible things I have to look forward to here."

Roana smiled now, too, as she hugged me again while we walked.

"Hey, and we have to set Rökkr up on a dinner date," she reminded me. "One of the Furies that was just around without a human companion is a good match for him. She is still single, and he has been interested in her. We will work on that when we get back."

"Single dragons, eh?" I smiled.

"They love, just like us," she affirmed. "You will see."

"I've already read about it from the journal," I reminded her.

This time when we got home, I couldn't resist helping Roana make breakfast . . . settling into a wonderful shared household routine for both of us. But frying eggs and sausages together over what was essentially an indoor campfire was certainly different. I even gladly took care of feeding Rökkr his morning fish. Roana and I were just smiling all morning though. We couldn't help it!

I then pleasantly insisted on a quick bath with her, dragon-heated of course, before our trip. After caressing my stubbly face in the tub, now with a couple days' growth of beard on me, Roana introduced me to the interesting, if seemingly risky practice of shaving with a sharp knife.

"Roana, I'm not sure about this," I cautioned. "I've never used anything but an electric razor."

"Trust me," she soothed as she had me just lean back against her wet self before she soaped me up, and then carefully ran the blade across my face with precise short strokes.

"Roana, this is amazing," I marvelled as I ran a hand across my surprisingly smooth jaw. "You ever do this for anyone else before?"

"Not for a man, if that is what you are asking," she smiled. "But I have shaved areas for surgery on sheep and goats before. That is where I learned how to do this. They use clippers on the outside. We can in my clinic as well. But I also learned how to do the same thing with a knife, too."

"Okay, I trust you with a knife," I smiled. "Not all men would with their women though."

"I can imagine!" she laughed as she rinsed the knife beside me. "But I am leaving you with a Van Dyke for now. I think you will look very handsome with it. I just want to feel the skin of your jaw though."

"Anything you like," I assured as I turned my head and looked back at her.

"I like you," she decided. "I think I will even take you now."

I did not refuse her as I just turned around in the tub and started sensuously kissing her neck, nuzzling her with my semi-shaven face. We rolled around together in that tub for a good while—splashing, laughing, kissing, and more. I was finally experiencing my own 'Hiccup and Astrid' baths . . . and I can guarantee that they are every bit as good as the ones Hiccup had written about!

— — — — —

Before we knew it, it was already afternoon, and time for us to go.

"I have put a large satchel on Rökkr," Roana noted as she fastened the last strap on it, "but there will be a limit to what he can carry for you. The rest we can have delivered to you through our network."

"I packed way more than I've really needed this trip," I replied. "I can do without most of it. I pretty much did want to leave everything behind."

"And this is why," she said as she kissed me.

"This is why indeed," I agreed as I savoured another kiss with her.

"Oh," she remembered as we put on our jackets, "you want gloves this time?"

"What do you think?" I smiled as I held her again.

"Nah," she decided as the three of us then turned to go out the door. "I like keeping your hands warm myself. I'm the only one who has to hang onto the saddle bars for us."

"Good choice," I agreed before we then both got up into Rökkr's saddle outside our house on the grass.

Once we were both seated and strapped in, Rökkr then spread his wings and bolted the three of us up into a blue sky with just a few scattered clouds. Without even being asked, our Night Fury then banked and headed us south by southwest, towards civilization on the outside where I had come from . . . eons ago now it seemed.

I just smiled, even laughing a little, as we levelled off high in the air, surrounded by the most spectacular wild scenery of snow-capped alpine mountains and fjords of the deepest turquoise blue I had ever seen. I could not get enough of all this now. That I was living in this nature reserve, and was even an accepted and privileged resident of this park . . . I was just wow'ed all over again.

"I'm beginning to get used to this dragon flying," I said, still smiling as I held Roana from behind, tucking my hands inside her jacket again to keep them warm, "even starting to enjoy it."

"I think I will have you join me on future trips to visit my uncle," Roana decided.

"But you basically said I couldn't leave again," I noted, "that I'd be stuck on the island if things didn't work out between us."

"It was more of a 'test question' for you to accept, than a hard and fast rule," Roana sheepishly admitted. "Remember, we prize freedom here . . . so long as it does not endanger the dragons. After you helped to sedate the intruders today, I think you will be trusted, so long as you are flying with me."

"The trust of you and the villagers," I said, "is something I would never betray now. I mean my yes, fellow swan."

Roana just turned and kissed me.

"But while we're at it, were there any other 'test questions' that weren't hard rules?" I asked.

"Can't think of any at the moment," my mate smiled.

"No more tests though, right?" I checked as I held onto her from behind.

"No, my Lance," she assured, "just love now, I promise."

— — — — —

Roana and I talked and joked with each other, and to Rökkr as well, along the way. We dodged periodically to keep from being spotted by a passing plane or boat, as well as manoeuvring to remain hidden over coastal villages, and even a small city or two. Rökkr just went wherever the clouds offered the best cover.

At one point though, Roana cryptically suggested to Rökkr, "The cloud cover is just right. Let's show our Lance a bit of what he will be missing on the outside."

Rökkr then banked left, heading us over land to my surprise. Soon, between the clouds that surrounded us, I could see us flying over an inland estuary, with a city unfolding in front of us.

"This is Trondheim," Roana explained to me as we looked below us, "the old capital from where the Norse kings tried to conquer us almost a thousand years ago. Rökkr, the clouds are just right. Go for it. Let's tag Nidarosdomen."

Even though it was still broad daylight in late afternoon, fortunately there were a number of marine clouds hanging low over the city, casting a patchwork of shadows on the buildings and streets below us. The dragon ducked us into one cloud as we approached this one large and very old grey stone building that seemed to dominate the rest of Trondheim. Suddenly, Rökkr braked, slowing us down in the middle of the cloud. Then carefully lowering us to its bottom edge, our Night Fury then dove us towards the top of this tall, green copper spire and cross, just touching it with his right front paw as he pivoted and bolted us back up into the cloud again.

"That was Nidarosdomen . . . Nidaros Cathedral," Roana smiled as Rökkr now turned, ascending the three of us back through the clouds and heading southwest, towards our destination. "It is the tallest building along our route, and is built over the gravesite of Olaf the Holy, the Norse king who was most responsible for the conquest and Christian assimilation of our Viking peoples and culture. Rökkr and I just like to tag the top of Nidaros' spire sometimes as we pass by on our trips south to and from my uncle—just to say to the old king and his church, 'Ha! We're still here!' Just don't tell our elders about this though, Rökkr and I could get in trouble. But we've been doing it on and off for a number of years now . . . our own little contributions to dragon myths and sightings, you might say."

"You are a mischievous pack of trouble," I sighed with a smile as I continued to hold my arms around her.

"I am your mate now," she replied warmly. "Think you can handle me?"

"Yeah, I think I can do that," I said as I slipped my hands back inside her jacket, drawing her close to me for another kiss.

"Thank you, Lance," she sniffed now with a tear in her eye. "Thank you so much."

"I love you, Roana," I replied, kissing her deeply once more. I was just glad Rökkr was driving. Who knows what other medieval towers Roana and I would be ploughing us all into if we had any reins and were actually steering Rökkr like a horse . . . which no self-respecting dragon would ever allow anyway.

Once we were back out over coastal waters, I soon felt us shift again. Rökkr was dodging another boat below us.

"You know, as far as the rest of the world is concerned," I realized as we resumed course a moment later, "I no longer exist."

"We will have to fake your death back at the inn," Roana reminded me. "Just write out a suicide note, and we will make it look like you jumped off the bluff into the ocean. Fortunately, the tide will be high when we get there, so it can appear you were just swept out to sea."

"I do know a thing or two about high tides . . . now," I smiled with some chagrin.

"I did want to be stuck there with you," she reminded me warmly.

"I know," I replied with love, holding her tighter again.

"But just your note and a torn jacket of yours dropped in the water should do it," Roana added as she faced forward again. "You will truly be one of us after that."

"Whatever it takes," I decided, now being ready to literally cast aside my past . . . and my past life.

— — — — —

Eventually, the sun set behind the ocean to the west, and we were soon landing right back where my odyssey had begun . . . in front of Cabin Eight at the Drager Vertshus.

"We should find my uncle," Roana suggested as we both dismounted. "Rökkr, you can stay at the cabin here if you like," she then offered, turning to him. "We will be back shortly. You know what to do."

Still wearing our flying jackets, we walked down the path arm-in-arm towards the main inn.

"It'll be all over when your uncle sees me in this flying jacket," I smiled.

"Uh huh," my mate agreed as we squeezed each other tighter while we now walked across the parking lot towards the inn's front door.

"You know," I said looking around at parked cars as we passed them, "these cars, this world seems different, even strange now."

"I know," Roana lovingly replied as she kissed my cheek.

Just as I had expected, my wearing a Berker flying jacket was all that was needed to tip off Mister, or rather Uncle Johannsen, as Roana and I entered the lobby together. An incredible smile broke out on the old man's face as he almost bounded around the check-in counter after spotting us.

"Uncle!" Roana said as she hugged him, this time in English, presumably for my benefit. I kept right beside her as she proudly glanced at me, before quietly announcing, "We are mated!"

I had never seen any old gentleman so tearfully happy in my life as Johannsen now hugged us both tightly.

"Ve must celebrate this!" he said quietly with joy. "But come outside, so you can tell me more!"

Roana and I turned right around with him, and we all went back out the front door.

"There will be a big feast soon," Roana soon shared with him once we were on the trail towards Cabin Eight again. "Chief Roald has decided it . . . a mating feast for us at Old Berk!"

Johannsen just stopped and looked at us both . . . and cried all over again.

"To see that place come to life again vith dragons and people," he sniffed as he embraced us once more. "It has been something I have dreamed of my whole life!"

"We will send word to all Outside Berkers soon," Roana assured. "It will probably need to be before the end of June, when the fogs cease there for summer."

"Ohh . . . such news, such news!" he admired as he looked at both of us. "But vhat do you think now, Lance?" he asked.

"I am Roana's mate," I said, glancing at her, "and a Berker . . . and all that means in our culture, even though I can't speak the language yet. And I have you to thank for it . . . Uncle."

Even I was misty-eyed now as all three of us embraced once more.

Finally recovering himself again, he suggested, "Vhy don't you go to the cabin and pack. I vill bring a fish and beef buffet with my trusted cook that we all can enjoy . . . Rökkr, too!"

"Good idea!" I replied, as we all then broke and got busy.

— — — — —

"So what do you want in this suicide note?" I asked a little later, sitting down at the desk in my cabin while Roana kindly packed my things around me.

"Just make it simple, sounding calm, but determined," she suggested. "Like you just want to move on to the next world or life . . . which for you, is the truth."

"Okay," I accepted as I began writing . . .

_To whom it may concern,_

_Know that I have done what I have . . .  
>jumped off a sea cliff to my death here<br>. . . of my own free will._

_My last will and testament that  
>includes my now former wife, Melanie, remains in force.<br>She can have everything.  
>I forgive her.<em>

_I bear malice towards no one.  
>I am at peace now.<em>

_This world just wasn't right for me.  
>Hopefully, the one I go to now<br>will be._

_Signed,_

_Lance Hyse  
>12 May 1980<em>

"What do you think?" I asked Roana as I finished.

"So, her name was Melanie," my new mate noted as she looked over my shoulder. "You are very charitable towards her."

"You really don't like her," I smiled.

"I don't like what she did to you," Roana answered as she laid a hand on my shoulder.

"Thank you," I said gratefully as put an arm around my new mate as well from my chair for a moment. "It feels really good to hear that from you."

"I'm glad," she replied. "It's part of my defending you now, even fighting for you, against enemies present, and past."

"Wow," I smiled. "I have a real Viking woman looking out for me now."

"Yes you do. And loving you," she reminded me.

"Yeah," I marvelled. "But I forgive her . . . my ex," I noted. "It's easy now that I have you. I don't want to keep even animosity tying me to her anymore."

Roana moved behind me now and warmly rubbed my shoulders.

"But what about the rest of the note?" I followed up.

"It will do fine," she assured as she continued to work my shoulders a little.

"Mmmm . . . thanks," I sighed at her loving attention. "But I should be doing you."

"I got you first here," she smiled as she kept rubbing me. "You can take care of me later when we get home."

"I will," I pledged turning my head up to look at her, "in style. I don't know about you though," I then noted, looking out the window, "but I'm ready for dinner. Where's your uncle? And where's Rökkr for that matter?"

"I think Rökkr went off to doze around back until dinner comes," she suggested. "Even when it is safe for him to be out here, he still tends to hide behind the cabin at times, just in case. As for my uncle, I do not know. He should at least be setting up the buffet out on the patio by now."

"You done packing me up here?" I followed up as I looked around the cabin now.

"The one suitcase we can take with us is ready to go," Roana assured. "My uncle will save the other suitcase, and it will find its way to you. But most of your clothes will not last long with us anyway, especially with the stone washing we still use. By the way, I would appreciate your help on wash days, as well as with cleanings . . . for love, please?"

"I'll help, promise," I pledged. "But, even though I imagine all of you have looked at this before, I want to explore if we can have at least community washing machines in the electrical bunker."

"Where would we get the detergent? And where would the wastewater go?" she posed. "Everything has to be biodegradable in our village, and nothing can harm the fresh water on the island, as we drink that, or the sea waters around us, as we get our fish from there. The natural lye soap we use is caustic enough as it is."

"Hey, I can dream, can't I?" I joked.

"Doctor Hyse . . ." a male voice outside the open cabin door now said. "We were told you were here."

"But your girlfriend's gonna have to be going now," a second voice added. "As I'm afraid you'll have to be, too."

"What's the point?" the first replied. "We're gonna have to drug her anyway."

I snapped around in my chair, hearing their American accents . . .


	13. Chapter 13

"Who are you?" I demanded of the two strangers in black business suits and trench coats as I now quickly got up from my seat at the desk in my cabin, putting an arm around Roana beside me.

"NASA Security," one said as they both showed their ID badges. "They need you back at the lab, right away, Doc. Some more 'stuff' has arrived on a meteorite this week. It's Code Blue for your entire team. We are to take you to an airfield nearby and fly you home."

"I'm not going home," I said firmly. "My contract was allowed to expire. I am making my life here now, with this woman. She is my mate."

"Not with what you know, she's not," the lead agent replied. "You know the terms of your security agreement and clearance, Doctor . . . it's for life. The contract lapse was a bureaucratic oversight—it's in force again as of two days ago. And as you've no doubt been informed before, you are provided with a wife, if you desire one, from within our community, cleared by us. We're sorry the first one didn't work out. We will find you another."

"But before the lady here gets really scared, and before this gets ugly," the second agent said as they both advanced into the cabin and withdrew syringes, "let's go, Doc."

"Fyrir því drekar!" Roana now fiercely exclaimed.

"What did you say?" the second agent asked.

"She said, 'For the dragons,'" I explained, "if you need a translation!"

"Wait," the lead agent said. "You're one of _those_ people?"

"Yes," Roana confirmed, relaxing her stance somewhat and shifting to English, "I am a Dragon Berker. Lance Hyse is my mate now, and under the terms of the classified Berk Sovereignty Agreement of 1943, he is also a repatriated Dragon Berker, and a citizen under our protection."

"Mate? Is that like a husband?" the second man asked.

"It is more than that," I defended. "But you wouldn't understand."

I saw Roana glance admiringly at me out of the corner of my eye.

"Sorry, lady, the United States has first claim on this guy, based on national security grounds," the lead agent asserted.

"You are not on United States territory," Roana noted.

"We are on NATO member territory, practically as good," the lead man countered.

"This is Ancestral Land to us," Roana responded. "We have the superior claim to him."

"No, your Protected Territory is north of here, well north," the lead agent contended.

"Read the treaty!" Roana lectured. "There are two classes of land addressed—'Protected Territory' which is off-limits to all outsiders, even you . . . and 'Ancestral Lands' which is territory we never surrendered all claims to, and which is recognized by the Kingdom of Norway. You get the Defence Ministry in Oslo and NATO Command in Brussels on your secure car phones right now!"

"I'm impressed," I had to comment aside to Roana.

"So am I," she replied. "So there is at least 'little green mould' from outer space?"

"'Fraid so," I sighed. "Some of us have been keeping it alive for years now. Inbreeding . . . even among microbes . . . has been a problem, too. But you're supposed to be drugged for hearing that."

"Well, two can play at that game," she said. "Rökkr!"

"What the . . . !" the two agents now exclaimed as they turned while a snarling Night Fury now moved in behind them, blocking their escape out of the cabin.

"You have now seen one of our dragons, on our Ancestral Lands," Roana now asserted, withdrawing two syringes of her own from her leather skirt. "I have the right to drug you, too."

"Lady, we really don't need this legal maneuvering," the lead operative sighed, as he now pulled out his handgun. "We'll let you live, we'll even let you keep your memories . . . _if_ you don't cross us. Doctor Hyse is a national scientific and intelligence asset to the United States who is coming with us. Those are my orders."

Roana sighed and looked down for a moment. "Can we have a few minutes then?" she then said, now tearing up. "To say goodbye?"

I looked at Roana, shocked that she seemed to be giving up. But she quickly slipped me a glance as she placed her syringes back underneath her skirt.

"I'm not supposed to," the lead agent hesitated. "But alright. A few minutes. Doctor Hyse could even put in a few good words for you, and you might . . . I emphasize _might_ . . . be able to rejoin him someday. Now, if you'll withdraw the dragon, we'll wait outside," the agent finished.

"Rökkr, vera á eftir farþegapláss," she then said.

"Thank you," the lead operative responded as the Night Fury now withdrew. "We'll give you five, minutes."

"We're drawing the curtains . . . for privacy," Roana stated.

"Then it's cut to three minutes," the agent countered. "We don't want you trying anything funny. Sorry that doesn't leave much time for the fun stuff either, but that's the deal."

"Out!" Roana demanded.

"Harry, go around the other side," the lead agent directed.

"Are you kidding?" the other replied. "I'm not going near that snarling dragon!"

"Okay . . ." the lead agent sighed as he now left out front as well.

As soon as the door was shut, Roana moved and drew the curtains. She then rushed back to me.

"Could you leave everything else behind now?" she now asked in my ear as we embraced.

I knew what was important to me. "Yes," readily said as I held her tightly. "But I just want your original letter to me though. That's the one thing I can't replace."

"Why Lance," she admired with a smile, thoroughly charmed. "Got it right here," she affirmed, showing it to me safely tucked in a pocket inside her flying jacket.

"A life with you and the dragons is what I want now," I assured.

"I'm about to give you a one-way ticket to just that!" Roana replied as she quickly parted from me and went over to turn several handles on the gas stove, while I grabbed my own flying jacket again. "Quick, into the bathroom," she then said.

We both went in and Roana closed the door.

"Now what?" I asked, in almost a whisper.

"Out the window," she quietly directed. "If you hear Rökkr snarling, it means the agents are close."

"He's quiet," I noted as I opened and looked out the small window, now seeing him.

"Go!" Roana urged. "I'm right behind you."

I tumbled out the small window into a less than graceful landing on the ground, but kept absolutely silent. Roana landed almost on top of me.

"Onto Rökkr!" she quietly urged. We both got up. Roana leapt onto him first, with me following right behind.

"Rökkr, fly!" Roana then quietly urged as I scrambled to attach my harness, while she attached her own strap.

The Night Fury vaulted us up into the air with powerful but quiet beats of his wings, as I now held tightly onto Roana. With subtle presses from her hands and legs, she had Rökkr make a tight turn in the air behind the cabin.

"Rökkr . . . cabin skylight . . . fire!" she quietly directed.

The Night Fury let loose a bluish-plasma blast aimed at the centre of the cabin from above its rear, as we then banked sharply away to the north.

_KAABBBOOOOMMM!_

I looked back to see the cabin exploding in a large fireball, as Rökkr powered us away into the night air. I noticed the two figures of the agents being knocked to the ground by the explosion in front of the patio, and then getting up and diving for cover in some nearby bushes.

"The agents look alright," I assured as I faced forward again and held tighter onto Roana.

"Good, at least NASA can't declare war on us then," Roana replied. "Good boy, Rökkr!" she then praised as she patted his neck.

"But what about your uncle's cabin?" I then asked.

"He and the others know what to do," she assured. "It was a propane gas explosion, which the evidence will show was triggered from the stove at the centre of the cabin. The blast hole at the skylight in the roof will be consistent with that. They will find remains inside . . . planted of course by a couple of us in the local fire brigade that will put out and investigate the fire. The remains will be so small and so charred though that they will be unidentifiable. You and I will be presumed to have committed suicide and died in that explosion. Even NASA won't really be able to contest those findings . . . although I imagine they will eventually deduce what we did. It's not the first time we've had to stage something like this though."

"But what about your uncle?" I then asked with some concern.

"He can take care of himself," she assured. "He will have been making a few calls for assistance from others in our Outside network as soon as the agents left the lobby. Even if one of them remained to watch him, a few words in Old Norse on the phone would be all that was needed to bring help. And with the explosion now, he will get the help he needs. Local police might even arrest the agents on suspicion of arson and murder . . . forcing NASA to clear them, but not immediately. We can hope anyway. But I will have our representative file a protest through Oslo though to establish your protected status and citizenship with us," she decided, " . . . otherwise you truly won't be able to leave our island, as they might try and grab you again if you venture out."

"I feel bad about losing your uncle's copy of the journal though, having left it in there," I sighed. "He seemed to really treasure it."

"Where do you remember leaving it?" Roana asked.

"On the kitchenette counter," I replied, "near the coffee-maker, when you took me for our first flight."

"It wasn't there when I packed," she assured. "Given that the bed was made when we arrived, he had likely already picked it up. Besides, we would give him another copy if it is lost."

"Think they will chase after us here?" I wondered.

"I imagine they know they cannot force us down along this coast very easily," she assured. "With a Night Fury, we can dodge and evade most any plane or helicopter they can follow us with. We can also shoot them down if we have to, but as the Americans are allies of ours, we really cannot do that. And boats? Forget about it! Once we reach our Protected Territory though, we are home free."

"Rökkr is flying us faster than usual," I noted, looking down.

"He is getting us home to safety, as quickly as he can," Roana replied as she patted his neck. "He knows what is going on, don't you, boy?"

Rökkr gave a quick bark of agreement, but remained very focused on his task of flying.

"He will just be very tired when we get home," she empathized.

"Well, I've really 'crossed over' now," I realized.

"You do not mind, do you?" Roana asked.

"No regrets," I said as I held her tightly from behind as Rökkr now flew us on to my new life. "I love you, Roana, and I already love the life we are beginning."

"It will be my pleasure to make every day as wonderful for you now as I can," Roana assured. "And do not be shy back there anymore. You are my mate, and may touch me wherever you like. I mean that."

"I'm sooo glad we left my gloves behind here," I laughed into her shoulder. Roana laughed, too as I once again slipped my hands inside her flying jacket. She then turned her head for a kiss as I let my hands roam wherever I wanted them to within that jacket.

"Welcome, my love," she said as we kissed again, deeply. "And thank you so much for making my fondest dreams come true."

"You are worth giving up a world for," I admired.

"I am sorry we did not get any of your things," she said as I held her. "But I and several neighbours will have a nice new set of clothes for you in no time. I look forward to seeing you wear as little as possible though between now and then. We must make your existing clothes last until new ones are ready," she smiled.

"You are terrible, you know that?" I smiled in return.

"The worst," she assured. "Just for you."

"I am sorry we didn't have that nice buffet with your uncle though," I sighed. "I'm still hungry. Damn those agents."

"It's alright," Roana replied. "Rökkr and I are hungry, too. But we can make it home. We will just have a small, late night feast there."

"I'll help you make it," I pledged.

"Lance, I love you," my mate sighed.

"I love you, too, Roana," I replied, "more than I ever imagined I could."

I held Roana tightly as we flew on through the night. Allowing myself to think about many things as we shared a moment of silence now, I found myself burying my head against her head and neck as I felt Rökkr beat his wings some more.

"I feel like I'm really off to Valhalla here," I sniffed, feeling almost overwhelmed as everything now just seemed to hit or sink in with me, "on a great winged beast, with a Valkyrie not only leading the way, but giving herself utterly to me as my mate. It's incredible, just incredible. And I get to live it all now, every day."

"I am glad, my love," Roana said, reaching back to caress my head and face. "I truly am."

"But my ex gets everything now," I pondered, "even without the note. My old will is still in force."

"I can see a stop is put to that, if you like," Roana smiled.

"Nah, let her have it," I decided, "except for maybe a few photo albums, and my books on Old Norse."

"We have the best books there are on Old Norse—the real things, books in English, too," Roana assured. "But I will see about those photo albums. A long-lost relative of yours will show up to your ex-wife soon, with money."

Rökkr now suddenly barked as he glanced around.

"Hang on!" Roana warned as our Night Fury now dove for the coastal forests beneath us. "The fools are trying," she then sighed as Rökkr now quickly landed and hid us among some trees on a coastal bluff while we now heard a helicopter approaching at high speed.

"I thought you said we could evade, or even destroy them in the air," I queried.

"If we fight them, we break the treaty," she replied as we warily watched the skies through the trees. "We have never done that from our side. The treaty is one of the most important things protecting the dragons. I have sworn to exhaust all other options first. Even then, I would have to argue before the elders and the village that defending you was important enough to justify risking the dragons' protection. Any of the rest of us, even Rökkr, would be expected to sacrifice ourselves first. But with what you know and can do for the dragons, I think an exception would be made for you."

"Roana, you would die here?" I asked.

"I live for the dragons," she quietly replied while watching the helicopter approach. "I would die for the dragons, and for anyone or anything that ensures their protection and survival. I have also sworn a mating oath to die for you, and our family. I mean what I swear, Lance . . . all of it."

"I don't know if I can let you do that, for me," I said to her.

"Then you are not letting me love you as much as I have promised to," she replied as she turned and put a hand on my arm. "Death is but a brief pain, a transition. Love is forever . . . mine is."

"Roana . . ." I cautioned.

"Let Rökkr and I do what it takes to get you out of this," she said, almost cutting me off.

"Alright," I reluctantly agreed. "But can I get off and stretch my legs for a moment, maybe take care of something else, too?"

"Stay on!" Roana ordered. "We could be taking off any second."

The helicopter now slowed near us and began sweeping its searchlight.

"Surrender Doctor Hyse to us," we heard in American English on their loudspeaker. "Come out now with your hands in the air."

"They must have localized on us somehow," my mate guessed. "Maybe infrared equipment."

"Well, I guess we blew up your uncle's cabin for nothing," I sighed.

"Rökkr, stay on the ground . . . warning shot . . . miss them . . . fire!" Roana quietly directed.

The dragon unleashed a plasma blast into the sky, passing near the helicopter, but missing it. Rökkr gave a quiet, angry roar as he continued watching the helicopter, seeming to want to go after it, and eliminate it.

"We will not let you escape with Doctor Hyse!" the helicopter's loudspeaker warned, as the aircraft now began circling slowly around us at a greater distance.

"Look, if your representatives are good, let's see if we can work this out diplomatically if I give myself to them," I now suggested. "They know I'm not dead now, and they won't give up until they get me back. Roana, I'm not supposed to say this, but as a strategic asset, I and anyone who captures me are supposed to be killed if I fall into what they consider the wrong hands. I was hoping our fake suicide would allow me to leave this all behind, but it's not now."

"Lance . . ." she sighed with distress to me.

"Sorry," I apologised. "I guess there were some more things I should have shared with you before we mated."

"No, it's not that," Roana replied. "But they can make you disappear to us, just like we can make you disappear to them. So no matter what, I will not surrender you, okay? You are my mate now! And on top of everything else, don't forget your own vow to me . . . we fight together!"

"I don't want my new family getting hurt though, alright?" I replied as we all looked up for the helicopter as it kept circling beyond the trees. "I know we vowed to die for each other, too. But to me, that includes surrendering myself so both of you are safe."

"Lance . . . I can't let go of you, not now," Roana turned and said to me as she gripped my hand over her heart while the helicopter and its rotor thumped loudly around us, seeming to be closer than ever now and blowing leaves and branches in all directions.

I looked into her distressed eyes. It was the first time I had seen anything less than strength and determination in her. "Alright," I relented. "But I will not see you two get hurt or die, not for me."

Roana and I shared a quick, passionate kiss, as Rökkr maintained a sharp watch around us. Suddenly, he let out a quick bark as he looked behind us.

"We're leaving!" my mate warned. "Someone is approaching!"

I felt something small quietly whiz right past me as Rökkr began to take off.

"Owww! My arm!" Roana exclaimed in front of me.

"What's wrong?" I asked as Rökkr vaulted us into the air again.

"Oh gods, no," Roana now exclaimed with a shock in front of me as she reached with her right hand towards her left arm. We now skimmed along the treetops as we headed north again. Rökkr now glanced back at us as he could while flying.

"What is it?" I repeated.

"Lance, I've been shot . . . with a dart," she said, now terrified as we both looked at the pen-sized dart in her hand. "It's memory drugs. Slower acting than ours, but my mind is going."

"Roana, no!" I responded.

"Lance, Rökkr . . . save me," she tearfully pleaded as she began to get groggy in my arms. "I don't want to lose who I am now . . . Can't forget you, Lance . . . We are mated . . . Don't let me lose us . . . Don't give up on me . . . Lance . . ."

She willed herself to move her face against mine and kissed me. I kissed her back as I held her tightly from behind, tears suddenly flowing from my eyes. I then felt her lips fall away from mine.

"_Roana!_" I cried as she now slumped forward in the saddle while I continued to hold her tightly. I grabbed the dart before it fell out of her hand and put it in my jacket pocket in case we needed it to identify the drug later. Rökkr now moaned as he looked back sadly at us.

"Rökkr, save us!" I now said desperately, not having a clue as to what to do. "I'll hold onto Roana!" I decided, reaching around her to grip the saddle bars. "But get us the hell out of here!"

The dragon then faced forward again, accelerating us and gaining altitude with all his might now. The helicopter had already altered course to pursue, and was soon almost breathing down our necks. Its roar became deafening. Rökkr glanced back towards them and then banked sharply away, before pivoting and diving down among the treetops again. Roana's body now shifted to one side as I struggled to keep her in place on the saddle.

"Careful, Rökkr!" I warned. "Roana is unconscious, asleep! Balance us, so I can hold onto her!"

The dragon grunted loudly, glancing back at me and giving a sharp nod. We suddenly came upon a coastal town. Rökkr kept right on going, flying low over buildings, and around some local radio towers, with the helicopter still in hot pursuit.

"God, Spirit, anyone," I prayed aloud, "help us, somehow!"

As the three of us zoomed sharply around one five-storey building above the streetlights, I briefly saw a little girl on a street corner looking and pointing right at us. Fortunately, her parents seemed to be looking higher and behind at the helicopter with its noise and flashing lights pursuing us in the dark of night. But worrying about Outsiders seeing a dragon wasn't my highest priority at the moment.

Rökkr now dropped us down even lower over the town's waterfront and harbour. I could have almost reached and touched the masts of some of the fishing craft and sailboats as we passed silently over them at speed. The helicopter was still pacing us from a safer height above and behind.

We then skimmed low across the harbour as Rökkr strained to pick up speed again. Soon, we were flying over what appeared to be a navy base, with a frigate or two at the docks, and a number of military helicopters now right below us, parked on an airfield. I heard sirens and even saw several rocket flares shoot up from the ground . . . but the flares didn't seem to be directed at us.

I then looked back to see no less than three Norwegian naval helicopters quickly rise into the air behind us and the pursuing American helicopter.

Rökkr gave me what must have been a warning grunt before he banked sharply and turned around. At least he kept us balanced as G-forces shoved Roana and I down into the saddle. I cringed as he now drew in his wings and we zoomed right past the American helicopter and in between the three Norwegian helicopters in the darkness, crossing back out over the harbour and then banking out towards the ocean this time.

I looked back to see the Norwegian helicopters now swiftly move to block the helicopter that had been pursuing us, quickly surrounding it—one of them even emphasizing their point with a brief burst of machine gun fire. The American helicopter halted in the air now, and no longer tried to pursue us as we left it and the base behind.

Rökkr glanced back, giving a quick bark of satisfied triumph before resuming our northerly course towards home and powering us back higher into the air and along the once again dark and wild Norwegian coast. He had saved us. I just almost collapsed with a sigh against Roana in front of me, laughing with nervous relief.

"We did it, Roana," I sighed . . . before I remembered what had happened.

Rökkr now looked back at his human companion and I with concern as he flew on.

"What do we do for her, Rökkr?" I now sadly asked, still holding her slumped form between my arms against the saddle bars. He looked me in the eye for a moment, before grunting loudly and continuing to fly us north.

"Rökkr," I said as we flew. "I don't think I can do this alone . . . help her remember, bring her back. I can't even talk to anyone else in the village, other than you. And you can't even talk to me. How are we gonna make this work, buddy? How?"

The dragon looked back at me, barking briefly as he then looked and gestured with his head a little towards Roana.

"We're gonna do this, huh?" I asked. "What she wanted?"

Rökkr barked sharply at me and gave a single firm nod with his head.

"Alright, buddy," I accepted. "You are her dragon, and I am her mate. We are her family. And we are gonna make this work, make this happen for her . . . somehow."

Even though I had been through the wilderness of divorce and abandonment, I had never felt quite so lost as I did now. I looked at the woman I had sworn I would never part from.

"How am I gonna get you back?" I wondered aloud as I looked at her. "You're my guide here. I don't know what the hell to do apart from you."

The dragon now grunted and barked at me.

"Rökkr, I'm sorry," I said. "I don't understand what you're saying. I don't have a clue."

He now just snorted and shook his head in frustration, facing forward again, and flying us all onwards. Then, I felt something brushing against my left hand as it gripped one of the saddlebars. I looked down. It was Rökkr's ear. He looked back towards me again with calm encouragement.

"We'll figure this out as we go, huh?" I guessed.

The dragon nodded slowly as he looked at me.

"Rökkr, you're my guide now, my translator to the village, everything," I sighed. "Plus you gotta help Roana re-learn who I am . . . what I am to her."

He nodded again as I looked at him.

"I wish you could share your wisdom and encouragement with me," I sighed, "the way you have with her."

He just looked at me again, steadily, for the longest time.

"You will? You are?" I guessed again as I looked at him.

He nodded, and then faced forward, concentrating on our flight once more. For my part, I just maintained a vigil behind Roana . . . keeping her in the saddle, praying for both of us as I alternated my hands between warming one inside her jacket and keeping the other grasping Rökkr's saddlebars.

— — — — —

After a while, I saw four dark but silent masses swiftly approaching us from the front. I then heard the now unmistakable roar of a dragon. Rökkr, tired as he was, managed to answer back.

"Dragon Riders," I recognized aloud with relief. "Here to escort us home."

I didn't know how they found us along the coast, or knew to come looking for us, but I was glad they did.

The four dragons and riders then quietly swooped around us, taking up positions in front, behind and beside us with the precision of an aerobatic drill squadron.

"Árvekni!" I called out, recognizing him in the dim moonlight as one of the four as he took up a position on our right. He just gave me a quick glance and a single nod as he flew beside us. I never thought I'd be relieved to see him, but I sure was now. I saw he was without a rider though. _Figures,_ I thought to myself with a slight smile. Somehow I just couldn't quite picture him as the type to be tolerating one of us humans on his neck.

He then issued a series of barks at Rökkr, probably asking him what had happened and how we were. Rökkr answered back with a series of barks and loud grunts as well. Árvekni then simply nodded and issued another series of barks to our group, before moving forward and taking the lead as a Nadder and rider moved to take the position on our right. Looking around, I managed to see the other riders look with concern at Roana and I in some dim moonlight filtered through some thin clouds, while their dragons flew on with determination.

Soon though, we reached our Protected Territory. I could tell by the horde of airborne dragons and riders that met us in the dark in the air. The other dragons roared in greeting and salute to us. Rökkr emitted one loud grunt this time. He was too tired for anything else. He could only focus on getting us the final miles back to the village.

"Well done, buddy," I praised as I reached further around an unconscious Roana to stroke his neck.

I then looked around as most of the rest of the dragons, many with riders but some without, now surrounded us as well. They proceeded to escort us the rest of the way home, while a few remained on guard at the territory's edge, resuming a vigil that had lasted now for centuries. To my surprise, Árvekni remained in the lead. I thought he would have peeled off and remained on guard at the boundary, but I guessed that for some reason, we were worthy of the VIP escort all the way home.

Finally, our island and valley came into view. The buildings of the village were indeed well disguised from the air amid just a hint of light from a newly crescent moon as the skies now cleared. You could hardly tell they were there. Our escorting dragons heralded our approach with roars, as well as detailed barks and grunts as we drew closer. I saw a number of villagers and dragons gathering on the ground near where we would land, illuminated by a single bonfire and torches mounted on the fronts of some of the homes.

Rökkr descended somewhat unsteadily now, his wings seeming to falter a little as we started to tip to one side before he corrected.

"Hang on, buddy," I encouraged with another pat on his neck. "Almost there."

He did as well as he could though, finally landing hard in front of our house, or at least his and Roana's house, with a big thud. I did not begrudge him the quality of his landing this time. I quickly got off him and took a still unconscious Roana into my arms, while Rökkr collapsed on the ground next to us.

"You did it, Rökkr," I said gratefully to him as I balanced Roana in my arms so he could see us both. "You got us home. Well done, buddy. Well done."

Rökkr could only faintly smile as he seemed to rest his eyes for a moment while breathing heavily. I then saw Árvekni approaching us with that stare of his.

"Rökkr," I somewhat nervously nudged him with my leg, "Árvekni's coming." Rökkr didn't budge or open his eyes however.

"Árvekni . . ." I nervously began trying to explain.

Once again he just interrupted me with a few grunts of his own, surprisingly gentle this time, before he closed his eyes and bowed his head towards us. I glanced down at Rökkr for a cue of some kind, and noticed he was just giving a single nod in return, which is what I proceeded to do towards Árvekni as well. That apparent acknowledgement or congratulations done, Árvekni then turned and left. Somehow I pitied any helicopter and crew that would try to come up against him.

I then saw Chief Roald approach with a torch. I just hoped he understood Night Fury.

"Rökkr, could you tell the chief what happened?" I asked.

The dragon got back up on his legs this time and nodded to me, then making a series of grunts and murmurs to Chief Roald. The chief glanced between the dragon and I, nodding to Rökkr as the dragon grunted.

"I'm sorry, Chief," I added, wanting to say something to him anyway.

Rökkr must have translated my words, because Roald laid an understanding hand on my shoulder, before shaking his head and gently smiling. He then took Roana's limp hand, placing it against my hand that was bracing her legs, and pressing our two hands tightly together.

"You still consider her and I mates then, no matter how she wakes up?" I asked.

Roald looked at the dragon for a translation, which Rökkr provided. Roald then silently nodded at me, pressing Roana's hand against mine once more. He then waived his free hand, motioning and looking all around the village, before pointing to our hands together.

"The whole village will help her remember? Help us stay together?" I surmised.

After looking for another translation from Rökkr, the chief nodded yes. Rökkr then issued several barks and grunts at him. The chief said something to someone else, and then waited in front of me, holding up a hand seeming to ask me to wait as well. Roana wasn't exactly light in my arms, but I complied.

Another villager soon returned with what turned out to be a handheld blackboard and chalk. The chief took to writing something in runic characters, and then showed it to me.

"Have faith," I read aloud in translation. "You are not alone. We will help you, and your mate."

I looked at Roald now, and nodded in almost tearful gratitude. "Thank you," I said.

Rökkr gently barked at the chief one more time, motioning with his head towards the chalkboard. I saw the chief erase the board and now write something else before showing it to me.

"Follow dragon's lead," I read, almost smiling. "Thank you, Rökkr," I then said to him. "We're making this work here, buddy. Any more messages for tonight?"

The dragon grunted, shaking his head, as the chief then pressed Roana's hand against mine one more time, gently smiling, and gesturing towards the front door of the house that he was clearly encouraging me I still shared with her and Rökkr.

"Goodnight, Chief," I acknowledged as I turned with Roana in my arms towards the house. "I'm sure you'll be checking on us in the morning."

Roald looked to Rökkr one more time, and nodded to me again as the dragon finished grunting. The chief then gently patted me on the shoulder as I went up onto the porch of our house, as someone else opened the front door for me.

"Are you our neighbour? The one who made our home so nice for us to come back to?" I asked the older woman who opened the door for me. I then looked back as Rökkr grunted a translation. The woman then smiled broadly and nodded, gesturing inside as she did. Once again, a nice fire was going inside, the Mead Tea and even fish were all ready for Rökkr, and a nice midnight smorgasbord was laid out for my mate and I.

"Roana and I want to thank you so much for all you've done . . . during our courtship," I sadly smiled.

The woman smiled back as Rökkr translated for me, apparently also grunting for someone to bring the chalkboard to her. It may have been awkward, but Rökkr and everyone else realized it allowed me to understand what others were wanting to tell me. The woman soon scratched out some runes on the small board and showed it to me.

"You court her now," I read, translating the runes. "I help."

I could only tearfully smile and nod as I looked at her. Gods this was a wonderful village and people to me now! What Roana had told me on our mating night was true . . . everyone really helps in Berk, and I was experiencing it all, firsthand.

The neighbour woman then ushered me inside, as I was followed by Rökkr, before she waived goodnight. But then, she was replaced by the doctor . . . Roana's ex-boyfriend.

_This could be really awkward,_ I thought to myself as I continued holding Roana in my arms for a moment. Standing at roughly my height and thin build, he appeared to be around my mid-thirties in age . . . just redheaded though, with a trimmed beard—looking a bit like the painter Vincent van Gogh in a way. The doctor gently smiled, inviting me with a gesture of his right hand to lay Roana on the floor bedding in the living area. I just nodded as I proceeded to gently set her down on the mattress and quilts, even though Rökkr seemed to normally sleep on those. Rökkr laid himself down beside her, wanting to watch over her as the doctor performed his examination. The village physician first checked her pulse at her neck, felt her forehead, and then briefly waved a penlight across her eyes as he gently opened each one, and listened to her upper chest with his stethoscope. He then rose and spoke a few words in Norse to Rökkr without even looking at me. Rökkr merely nodded back, making some murmurs as he did. The doctor turned, briefly nodding at me, at least remembering to shake my hand, and then he left, shutting our door as he went.

"That's all?" I wondered aloud, looking towards the door after it was closed. "You don't want the dart, discover which drug it was, or even take a blood sample from her?"

It was the first less-than-neighbourly encounter I had experienced in New Berk. But then, he was her ex-boyfriend. He perhaps was uncomfortable, too, and likely wanted to make sure she was just knocked out and call it good. Rökkr had likely told them all they needed to know to alleviate their concerns anyway. I probably wouldn't have done much better with my ex-wife while being watched by whomever she ran off with either.

Rökkr then gently barked, drawing my attention towards him.

"Well, Rökkr," I then sighed. "It's just us now. Doctor tell you anything important?"

Rökkr just shook his head no with a grunt.

"How about I bring your food and tea to you?" I then offered. "You've worked very hard already for us today and tonight."

The dragon grunted, but then got up and went off to the cooking area by himself. I proceeded to watch, somewhat amazed, as the dragon first dipped his own bucket in the tea cauldron with his mouth, and then proceeded to wolf his fill of fish right off the cooking table, before carrying his tea back to his bedding. He then laid himself down and motioned for me to go and get what I wanted while he sipped the tea from his bucket and watched Roana.

"So you're telling me she pampers you a little, bringing it all to you after flights, and having me do so, too?" I surmised.

Rökkr kind of shrugged and nodded.

"But you like it that way, and I shouldn't spoil it for you," I then guessed.

He barked gently and nodded, seeming to smile, before motioning with his head at the saddle still on his neck.

"I gotcha, buddy," I smiled, as I went to remove his saddle, then giving him at least some of the pleasurable rubbing and itching I'd seen Roana provide him, before finally going to get a snack from among the smorgasbord myself.

Soon, both Rökkr and I had satisfied our appetites, and I had put the leftover food out on the porch for anyone else who wanted it. Now though, it was time for a decision.

"So, Rökkr," I asked, "should I leave Roana clothed as she is for sleeping, or change her into her nightdress? Which would freak her out less when she wakes up without her memories, the recent ones anyway?"

Rökkr gestured towards the screened area where she and I had slept, and where her nightdress was.

"Change her," I confirmed. "You're sure about that?"

Rökkr nodded as he looked at her.

"I'd love to understand your reasons," I sighed. "But as you said via the chalkboard, follow your lead . . . so I'll do it. But you'll explain it if she gets upset that a stranger has changed her."

Rökkr snorted and shook his head.

"You won't explain it?" I asked.

He snorted and shook his head again.

"Okayy . . . I'm not a stranger?" I then checked.

He nodded firmly this time.

"You mean I still just be her mate, even right now?" I guessed.

Rökkr nodded firmly, almost insistently.

"But buddy, she probably won't know who I am when she wakes up," I sighed.

He seemed to shrug and tilt his head.

"So that may be true," I deduced aloud, mentally connecting the dots. "But I just continue being her mate anyway, and she accepts that, because that's what her true self wants . . . and you'll tell her that?"

Rökkr nodded again.

"So should I sleep next to, or apart from her?" I asked. "Next to?" I repeated.

Rökkr shook his head.

"Apart?" I asked.

He shook his head again.

"A little apart?" I continued.

This time he nodded.

"We're figuring this out," I gently smiled as I looked at him and Roana. Rökkr grunted and nodded.

Soon I had both Roana and myself changed for bed, with her wearing her white nightdress and me wearing the blue tunic and white night pants she had given me. I bedded her down next to Rökkr with a quilt and soft pillow, and dragged the mattress and quilt over that she and I had shared during our one and only mated night so far.

"I sure hope this works, buddy," I sighed as I settled into my bed next to hers.

Rökkr snorted and shook his head disapprovingly at me.

"Okay, okay," I corrected myself. "It will work, because we will make it work, together, right?"

He now nodded, as he shifted himself against Roana, ensuring she would feel a familiar presence when she awoke. He then grunted, gesturing between me and Roana again.

"What?" I asked. He just looked at me. "Sorry," I then added, "that question is not enough for you to tell anything to me by."

He then clearly gestured at me, and then moved his head almost right against Roana's head.

"You don't mean kiss her goodnight?" I replied, a little incredulous.

Rökkr gave me a firm nod.

"More for me than her, I guess," I sighed.

He snorted and shook his head.

"For both of us?" I guessed again.

He nodded this time.

I moved over and propped myself on my elbow next to Roana's sleeping form for a moment, just looking at her, and then running a hand along her face. The dragon now reached across her and gently nudged against my shoulder.

"Rökkr," I said, almost overcome now by sadness, "it's like I'm saying goodbye to her . . . to what she and I were. Because she likely won't remember it, any of it . . . or us."

He gently snorted and shook his head next to me.

"Not saying goodbye?" I sniffed.

Rökkr quietly nodded.

"Saying hello?" I mused as I looked at and caressed Roana again.

He just nudged me.

"I don't know how," I replied.

Rökkr quietly moved his head briefly down near her face again, looking at me.

"Right," I sniffed. "The goodnight kiss. Well goodnight, Roana," I said as I gently kissed her lips. "I don't know what we'll wake up to in the morning," I added, touching my forehead against hers. I couldn't say anything more.

I arose to see Rökkr just looking steadily at me.

"What, not the right attitude?" I asked.

He nodded.

"Rökkr, she could . . . no likely will . . . be meeting me for what to her is the first time tomorrow," I sighed. "I don't know how to deal with balancing that against trying to still be her mate. Our short but rich history together made us who we have been."

He gave me a single nod.

"Yes, but go forward anyway?" I queried somewhat incredulously. "How?"

Rökkr grunted and tilted his head, both towards Roana and somewhat towards himself.

"We all just will?" I asked.

He just nodded and turned to blow out the candle illuminating us.

"That's not exactly an answer, Rökkr," I sighed as I lay down near Roana in my own bedding for the night.

He grunted in the darkness, before taking a big yawn.

"But it's the answer I have to work with," I said as I lay upon my pillow.

I heard a single grunt again.

"You guide Roana like this?" I asked.

I heard another single grunt.

"You dragons are hard core," I sighed.

Another single grunt.

"Night, Rökkr," I sighed with some frustration.

A final single grunt.

I didn't know what to feel now . . . what to hope for. I just turned on my side and reached out for Roana for a moment. I felt her arm, and then traced my fingers down to her hand, holding it for a moment. It was warm, but it didn't respond to me.

"Not like before," I sighed. "But before is what you said you wanted. Goodnight, Roana."

I wanted to say 'I love you', but I didn't know who I was saying it to anymore . . . who I could say it to. I just clutched my pillow and closed my eyes.


	14. Chapter 14

I felt a nudging, but it wasn't accompanied by the familiar physical presence I had known the previous two mornings.

"Roana . . ." I sighed inadvertently, when I had meant to say Rökkr.

"Ek er hér," I heard a voice answer softly.

That caused me to sit up. Rökkr was standing with his head right next to me, now looking at Roana near us. I looked at him distressed, wondering how to even begin with her. But he simply nudged me towards her as she lay in her bedding on the floor.

"Hi, can you speak English?" I gently asked, now turning towards her.

"Of course," she replied. Roana now glanced at me, apparently not surprised to see me . . . even though we were both in nightclothes in bedding on the floor. This made me wonder how much or little she was affected. She didn't seem to betray much emotion one way or the other however.

"How are you feeling?" I followed up.

"I have a headache," she sighed, putting a hand to her head. "But otherwise, I seem to be alright."

"What do you remember?" I then inquired, basically going into what 'doctor' mode I had as a biologist, trying to assess where she was with her memories through what she would tell me.

"The last thing I remember was falling off Rökkr in a combat training exercise," she replied.

That she had been doing that kind of thing surprised me, but I went on. "Do you remember what the date was?" I asked.

"I haven't worried about dates much since I came back from college several years ago," she almost smiled. "I just go by seasons here."

"Do you know who I am?" I decided to ask.

"Rökkr has told me," Roana answered, looking at me with half-opened eyes. "You are Lance Hyse . . . my mate."

The way she said that chilled me . . . just very matter-of-factly, without warmth or attraction. She had forgotten me though, forgotten us. I closed my eyes and pursed my lips, trying to show as little disappointment and sadness as possible. The Roana who knew and loved me was gone. It now began to really hit me . . . she was gone. I no longer knew the person that was inside her body, and she didn't know me, except what the dragon she still did know had apparently told her.

"I'm kind of sorry he up and told you that way," I finally responded as I now sat up again, looking away and trying to both think and maintain control. "I had hoped we could introduce me to you perhaps more gradually, and gently."

"Why?" she asked to my surprise, as I now looked her way again. "I've suffered a memory loss, due to drugs fired in a dart at me by American agents, who were trying to take you away from me and your chosen life here. Rökkr has told me I left clear instructions, even pleas, to continue my life as it was, to restore my memories as much as possible."

"And you're alright with that?" I wondered as I turned my head and looked at her.

"He told me that before this happened, I was very happy, deeply in love, and had achieved my dream of finding my mate," she said. "Why would I not want to get all of that back?"

"But it must be a big change, even a shock to you, from what you remember, isn't it?" I gently asked.

"Yes, it is," she agreed. "I've known just me and him. Now you are here . . . and we are mated."

"So don't you think you should have some choice in this, as you are now?" I followed up. "After all, that's what Berk is about; choice and freedom. Even you told me that, or rather the you that was with me yesterday did."

"But it's not my life now," Roana replied to my amazement. "This is her life . . . the person I became after what I remember. I wouldn't be here like this, if something hadn't happened to her."

"So you're prepared to accept her choices, live her life, from here on?" I asked. "Even if you would choose differently now?"

"I do not want to choose differently," she answered, looking at me. "I want to become again who I was. I was happy, and loved. I loved . . . you. That is what the me I was last night wanted—the kind of thing I can clearly remember wanting myself. I want that now. I want to become . . . me."

"You're uncertain about it though," I perceived.

"No," she replied. "I'm just putting together what Rökkr has told me with seeing you now."

The Night Fury near us now barked at me.

"_What?_" I snapped, turning to him.

He now followed up with some grunts, looking sternly at me.

"He says you're not helping me like this," Roana translated.

I looked down for a moment with mixed feelings. On the one hand, I wanted to keep my promises to the Roana I had mated with and loved. But on the other, I respected this new Roana, and wanted to defend her freedom to choose and live as she now wanted. I did not want the woman who was now in front of me to be bound, even perhaps enslaved, by choices she did not make herself . . . choices that I realized her other self could no longer experience. I wasn't a psychiatrist, but I comprehended the distinctions and differences between present and past consciousnesses or awarenesses.

"This is not how I would have handled this," I sighed resting my forehead in my hand for a moment.

"But this is how I wanted it handled," Roana stated.

I was stunned.

"Please?" she added.

There was that trademark 'please' of hers she used most any time she was making a firm request. There seemed to be a glimmer yet of the Roana I knew.

"Are you speaking for yourself, or for who you were yesterday?" I asked, looking again at her.

"I'm speaking for me . . . then and now," she replied with some determination, even a little anger. "Something was taken from me, against my will. Something precious. I want it back."

I could only nod in agreement and with respect towards her, before resting my eyes in my hand again, trying to conceal my sadness and come to grips with what had happened.

"From what Rökkr has discussed with me before you woke up," she continued, "I may only be missing a few months to a year or so of my life in memories. I am the same person. I am still Roana. Rökkr would not have told me all that he has, if he knew I had not wanted him to. He knows me, and what I want in life. I want what I had, Lance . . . even if I cannot remember it. Do you honour your commitment to me?" she then asked.

"I made it to who you were yesterday," I sadly replied, barely able to look at her now.

"And what did I ask yesterday?" she reiterated.

"Aside from us enjoying our first full day of commitment together as a mated couple," I sighed, "last night, as you and your memories faded while we were trying to escape from being pursued by those agents, you said that we are mated, that you did not want to forget me, and you asked me not to give up on you or lose us."

"Is there a reason you cannot do that?" she asked.

"I never had the chance to say I would, actually," I admitted. "I was too much in shock, just seeing you slip away."

"Have you been around long enough to hear the story of Alltaf?" she asked.

"You've told it to me," I reluctantly confirmed with a degree of chagrin now.

"Well, how would Alltaf look at this?" she gently pressed.

I couldn't say a thing. It would be breaking a promise. This Roana had me, and she knew it.

"Lance . . ." she said with empathy, now reaching for my hand. I reluctantly placed my hand in hers. I found myself moved even more now by our touch, our sense of connection. But I was also further saddened by it.

"But I made the promises I did to a person who knew me—with whom I shared memory and understanding," I gently tried to object. "To a Roana who warmly approached me, extended all manner of kindnesses and attention towards me, who taught me, debated with me, even made passionate love with me. That person does not feel to me like she's here this morning however. I love her. I love her deeply. But all that she was with me, all that we became together . . . I don't know if I can bring that back . . . or if it all can come back. Lives can move on. But I don't know if they can be reconstructed, put back together . . . especially once they've been erased."

"What do you see happening to me if we don't go forward together?" she calmly asked, still lying down.

"We had this discussion as part of our mating vows two days ago," I sighed wistfully. "It felt more like an argument at the time, but you said that you loved me. You declared that you were my mate, and that your heart was mine alone. You said you were no good for anyone else anymore, and that you would be alone for the rest of your life if we weren't together. I said I couldn't stand to think of you that way. It helped me overcome the reservations I had about loosing my freedom . . . my past life in the outside world. Even if we do not go forward together though, my life is in Berk now, not on the outside. I will stay here, and do what I promised to . . . correct the inbreeding problems among the dragons, and save them."

"So you are saying that even though I didn't die," she replied, "even though my spirit never left my body, that simply because I can't remember what made us who we were together, that even though I was your mate who had the older memories and personality I have with me now; I am not still your mate?"

"I don't want to say that," I replied. "But that is where the truth may be for me. The you I love may live more inside me now through memories than she does in you."

"Does the me I was yesterday still belong to me, as well as to you?" she asked.

"I would say so," I responded.

"Then, I want the me that lives in you back over here inside me, too," she replied. "It sounds like I asked you for that myself yesterday."

"You did," I had to agree.

"Rökkr told me that someone once broke her promise to you before you met me," she noted.

"He told you that, too, eh?" I sighed.

"He said you were hurt by it," she continued. "You do not want to do such a thing yourself, do you . . . to me? Or hurt Alltaf again?"

"You Berkers often use Alltaf the Dragon like this?" I queried, glancing at her.

Rökkr now interjected, grunting as he looked right at me. "He says, 'Alltaf's abandonment was the deepest wound in life my kind has ever suffered from yours,'" Roana conveyed for her dragon companion.

"I'm sorry, Rökkr," I apologised. "I meant no disrespect."

"He replies, 'Then understand what a promise and trust are to a dragon,'" Roana translated as she looked at him as he murmured, "' . . . what they were to Alltaf. His companion's face was the first Alltaf saw out of his egg. They touched, they made a bond that to us is never broken, except by death. Alltaf thought the person he saw was a brother, someone he would know, and love, his whole life. Alltaf played with him, learned with him, slept beside him, shared his greatest hopes and deepest fears, as any dragon companion would. They became Dragon Riders together, guarding us well and earning many honours. When we made his companion's brother chief, Alltaf was right beside him, bearing his disappointment and sadness with him, without thought for himself. Alltaf could not understand his companion turning away from all of us. He thought he had done something wrong, that his companion hated him, too. But when they shared the gaze at departure, each of them saw the truth. They both cried. Alltaf could bear his companion to the outside, but he could not bear his absence, his living rejection.

"'Roana trusts us both, you and I,'" she continued for Rökkr, "'just as Alltaf trusted his companion. That is our way here, what all of us learn. It is how we have survived together, hidden here for countless moons. It is our living memorial to Alltaf . . . a repayment of his love, and relief of his pain. Do not do to my Roana what your kind did to Alltaf. You may not think so, but it would be the same.'"

I just sat there, looking down in silence for a moment.

"Lance?" Roana finally asked.

"Rökkr, Roana . . . I don't know how to do this," I quietly replied.

Rökkr grunted as he extended his large head across Roana to me.

"He says, 'Neither do we,'" she sniffed with a laugh. "'But for Alltaf, and the Roana we both loved, and love still, let's try.'"

"You help?" I asked him with tears in my eyes as his face and large, green eyes filled my vision.

"He says, 'I already am,'" Roana translated as her dragon . . . well, our dragon really . . . murmured with a now gentle look in his eyes.

"I kind of knew that," I replied with a slight smile.

Rökkr's warm look at me was now irresistible. I leaned towards him and just embraced his head. I was starting to understand the dragon point of view, even discipline.

"Hey, what about me?" Roana now wondered, still lying down between us.

Rökkr gently pulled his head back from our embrace, and gestured with a tilt towards Roana. I sighed, nodding.

"Roana . . ." I hesitantly said to her, looking down and then back at her. "I don't know whether to say 'Good morning', 'Hello', or what right now to you."

I turned away, closing my eyes, unable to stem the tears now.

"What was the first thing we said to each other?" she gently asked.

"The only thing I could say to you was, 'Pleasure to make your acquaintance, miss,' and I didn't give you a chance to say much of anything to me before I just left you with your uncle out of nervousness," I confessed, now burying my face in my hands with a mixture of chagrin and sadness. "So I wouldn't exactly suggest we start there."

"Where would you like to start then?" she asked.

I just couldn't answer her.

"Lance?" she queried.

"Look, you don't feel like the same person to me," I finally answered. "I respect who you are now . . . enough not to just force you into something you do not know, and did not choose yourself. You don't seem to remember anything about me or us, and I don't know if it's right to just carry on like this didn't happen."

"What if I asked you to, as I am now?" she posed.

"You just step into a life you do not know and did not choose, and carry on?" I sadly still wondered.

"What's the alternative?" she asked. "Me alone and longing for a mate to share love with as I have been before you came into my life? I can remember doing that. And you alone and mourning who I was? Or us together, sharing my memories you have," she continued, now reaching a hand for me once more, " . . . finding love again, and making this work?"

"When you put it like that," I had to admit.

"See?" she queried.

I closed my eyes, barely able to hold it together. "Even now," I sniffed, "you are an angel . . . an incredibly rational angel."

"Give me your hand," she requested.

Even though it was still wet with my tears, and maybe even a little mucus, too; I did as she asked, sliding myself a little closer to her on the floor bedding and placing my hand in her outstretched palm and fingers. Her touch was warm, but holding that hand was still painful for me. I shut my eyes tightly again.

"It's alright," she affirmed as she squeezed that hand of mine. "You are going to help me become the same, or even a better person, to myself and to you. You are my mate, Lance. I chose you. You chose me. You just remember your choice, I do not. But I, Roana, made that choice. Even aside from what Rökkr has told me, that you are here, tells me I did. I trust myself, even us. Trust me and us, too, okay?"

"So you don't want a chance at a new freedom?" I double-checked.

"I was starting to experience that yesterday," Roana replied. "Don't take it away from me now, please?"

"But that's not your yesterday," I sniffed, shaking my head. "Your yesterday was months or a year ago . . . before me. Before I came along."

"I want my other yesterday," she said. "The one I shared with you."

I looked at her sadly as she now gently pulled my hand and the rest of me towards her. I allowed us to embrace among the floor bedding. It felt familiar, but it wasn't the same either.

"Lance, how did we like to wake up together?" she asked as her face came next to my ear in our embrace.

I couldn't help myself. I closed my eyes tightly. "It's lost," I whispered. "It's all just lost now."

"Most of me is still here," she patiently replied as she held me. "Just help me put the part of me that was us back together. Try, Lance. Please try, for me."

I pressed my face against the side of her head. I felt Roana turn her head slightly and grunt something in Night Fury towards Rökkr. He grunted something back, and then I sensed her begin to slip a strap of her nightdress off her shoulder.

"What are you doing?" I sniffed.

"Something I'm told you like," she replied.

"Just like that?" I wondered, pulling my head back a little to look at her.

"It's what a mate does," she replied. "I choose to honour my choice and commitment to you as your mate."

A knock at the door seemed to change her mind though as I sensed her slip that strap back over her shoulder.

"Lance, would you come to the door with me and see who it is?" she asked.

I quietly nodded as we both sat up. "I'm sorry," I sniffed, taking a deep breath. "I'm not helping as I should, am I?"

"I understand," she said, caressing my face. "You feel like you have lost me, lost us. That you are sad like this tells me how much you have loved me though, how much we loved each other. You don't think I want to get back to knowing such love? You are a great help, Lance. I want what I had even more now, okay?"

The door was being knocked at again.

"Okay," I tearfully smiled, even giving her a first new kiss. "We did this a lot," I sniffed as I ended our brief kiss.

"I hope so," she agreed as we both got up to answer the door.

I glanced back at Rökkr as Roana and I went to the door. He just gave me a single nod.

"You sure this is the right way to be going, Rökkr?" I checked with him.

He nodded again.

"This is what I want now, alright?" she said as we arrived at the door.

"You know, this is starting to feel familiar," I sighed.

"Rökkr said you had challenges in dealing with our ways, and ways of thinking," she began to smile. "But he also tells me you understand our writing, but not our speech or his speech. So I will translate again, okay? I can do that."

"I was able to read what people and Rökkr wanted me to know through runes on a small chalkboard last night," I replied. "But sure, go ahead. You've been much faster at helping me to understand."

"And I still am," Roana gently smiled as she finally opened the door, with each of us now having an arm around the other. We opened it to find both Chief Roald and the neighbour lady, as well as the Night Fury I believed to be the Guardian of Memories and several other dragons and humans I presumed were Roana's friends, gathered on our porch.

"Halló allir," she said to them. "Ek held at ek hafi tapat nokkrum mánutum minningar. En annars ek er allt í lagi. I just told them I think I have lost a few months of memories," she then turned and assured me, "but that I'm okay."

"You can tell them that Rökkr has told you most everything, while I haven't done that much yet," I quietly said.

"Félagi minn og drekarnn minn hefur verit at hjálpa mér at muna," she said. "I told them both my mate and my dragon have been helping me to remember."

I looked at her warmly now, almost shaking my head with a smile.

"Familiar?" she smiled back.

"Yeah," I nodded smiling more.

"This already feels good," she said.

I just drew her closer against my side as the chief spoke to us.

"He is asking that you stay in the village until your status with us is recognized and secured," she translated.

"American agents with my former government agency, NASA, tried to take me back to America last night at your uncle's inn while we were about to bring my things here," I explained to her. "What I know and have done for them in exobiology is still very important."

"Rökkr has basically told me about that," Roana noted.

"Is there anything you two _didn't_ discuss before he woke me up this morning?" I sighed.

"I will let you know when it comes up," she smiled.

"Well," I said, somewhat chagrined, "you can assure the chief that I have no problem staying in the village until he tells me it is safe."

"You are very much as Rökkr warned me you would be," she smiled before turning and translating my assurance to the chief.

"Hey," I interjected, not worrying about being overheard, or at least understood, by the others around us. "I love who you were, but I respect who you are now."

"And I appreciate that," Roana assured, laying a hand on my heart as she and the chief then talked back and forth for a few moments, with the neighbour lady chiming in, too. They all looked at me at times.

"What?" I finally couldn't resist asking.

"We all realize that my recovery is about you and I, as much as it is about me," she replied. "Don't worry about it now. But Chief Roald adds that he will be using this incident as a bargaining chip though, to secure some reparations for violating the treaty, and harassing our citizens, both dragon and human."

"I do still have the dart they struck you with," I noted. "It's in the pocket of my flying jacket. I'll get it."

As Roana explained this, and talked more with the others, I went to our flying jackets, laid over a chair in the middle of the house. As I moved Roana's jacket aside to get to mine, her original letter to me fell out onto the floor. I reached down, picking it up slowly. It was still so special to me as I looked at the letter in its small envelope . . . feeling almost like a lifeline from the woman, the angel, I truly loved. I was beginning to love this Roana, too. But her original incarnation still felt almost irreplaceable to me.

"Lance?" Roana called to me across the house.

"Coming," I said, still holding onto the letter as I carefully reached into a pocket of my own jacket to retrieve the dart without getting pricked by it. Soon, I returned to Roana's side.

"Here it is," I said as I held the dart out in my hand.

"I haven't quite seen this before," she said looking at it. "It looks like something western intelligence services would use, but it seems cruder."

"You know about these darts?" I queried.

"Yes, we are familiar with this type of dart," Roana said. "We have learned of them through our exchanges with Norway, NATO and Allied intelligence services over time, during past discussions of treaty protocols with them regarding our drugging and handling of outsiders. This dart is far more powerful and indiscriminate than what we use though—a blunt axe against the mind that is apparently taking months or a year away from me, compared to the comparatively precise 'scalpels' we use with our drugs to erase only a day's worth of memories of trespassers' experiences of us. This is a clear violation of our treaty with the outsiders however, especially as this was used against me. Could the chief have this and pass it on to our representatives as we press for reparations?"

"Of course," I replied, now carefully passing it to Chief Roald.

"But what's the letter underneath it?" she asked.

"I picked it up the same time I got the dart. It's your one letter to me . . . the most special thing I have from you, and the one thing we saved together from my cabin at your uncle's inn when we had to flee it," I said, deciding to be honest and open with her.

"Could I read it with you shortly?" she asked.

"Yes," I now sadly nodded.

I could see the others looking at me. The visiting Night Fury then murmured as she nudged me, before looking at Roana, who made a few grunts back to her, before turning to me.

"Our Guardian of Memories says this is harder on you than it is on me," she translated. "You miss the person you know, whereas I do not know the person I am missing in me. She hopes, she asks, that you not give up—on living here, or on me . . . either getting me back, or finding a new life with me. This is the hardest thing a mate can be asked to do. But she, and our entire village, will help."

"The chief wrote that on the chalkboard last night . . . that I wasn't alone," I sniffed. "But tell them, that this is my home, and you will be my mate."

"Not _are_ your mate?" she gently asked.

"I'm trying, Roana," I replied. "But I don't know whether to expect the you that I've known, or if I have to get used to a new you."

"Let's work on that, together," she invited, " . . . as mates."

"Alright," I accepted, "as mates."

She moved in close, right in front of everyone, and kissed me warmly, even deeply. Once again, it was both achingly familiar and yet uncomfortably different.

Roana soon bid good day to the others with another assurance she was alright, then closing the door and looking at me as Rökkr watched us both.

"I thought this would be so different this morning," I sighed. "That I'd be gently introducing you to what happened, who I was, what we shared. Yet I wake up with you apparently knowing the full situation, and most everything that happened. About the only thing you don't know is us . . . the details of who we were."

"Then let's get started on that," she invited. "Would you allow me to see my letter?"

Rökkr now lay down on our floor bedding again, and invited Roana and I with a grunt and a gesture to join him.

"Alright," I accepted, passing the letter to her as we sat down against the dragon.

"Should I read the letter first?" she asked as we somewhat curled up together. "Or do you want to explain it?"

"Why not start reading, and ask questions as they come up," I suggested.

"Is this how we would be sitting together?" she asked.

"Well, we were getting a little closer by now," I smiled.

"How close?" she followed up.

"We had developed an intimate history," I noted. "And we really enjoyed each other's presence . . . almost you more than me. I just was still getting used to how open and affectionate you were."

"Did we have these on?" she asked, looking at our nightclothes.

"Not past our very first night here together," I said. "You didn't even really let me wear this tunic you gave me."

"Sounds like fun," she smiled as she drew closer to me, even laying a hand on my partly exposed chest.

"But Roana . . . you don't know me," I cautioned, hesitating. "Not like you did before."

"Okay," she sighed, pulling back a bit. "So I'm guessing we had some dates, a courtship, and a lot of talking to get familiar and comfortable with each other, and came to love each other."

"We had one date . . . well, two if we count my first day here," I confessed. "And they came after this letter."

"Well!" she said with some surprise.

"See, you're different now," I sighed. "But you set that pace because we met at your uncle's inn while he drew me there from America through a tourism letter, to have a vacation. You couldn't keep flying back and forth on Rökkr to get to know me, so you came to ask that we talk and explore what we could over one full day together, down there. You introduced me to Rökkr that night . . . my having read most of Hiccup's journal made that easier . . . and you both brought me here. But read the letter now."

"Lance, that makes perfect sense to me," Roana assured. "You were an outsider. You had to make your choice for me and all this quickly, otherwise I would have to drug you to protect the dragons."

"That's what you wound up telling me towards the end of our day-long date," I confirmed.

"I am me, Lance," she emphasized. "I still think the way you remember me. I just don't remember what happened between us, that's all. I am counting on you, as my mate, to help me re-learn what happened between us. As I've said, I trust the choices I made, even if I don't remember them, because I trust myself, and I certainly trust Rökkr and what he has told me. If you love the person I was . . . trust my decisions and requests I made then, as I myself am doing now."

"Your uncle asked me to trust you, even as I was beginning to get to know you that one day," I sighed. "You did, too. But read the letter. That's an important piece of the puzzle here."

"Read it with me, close?" she asked as she now took it out of its envelope and opened it.

"Alright," I replied as I took her into my arms from the side. "But Roana, would you read it to me? I've never heard it in your voice."

She smiled and even kissed my cheek before she began reading the letter. "Lance, I hope you are feeling better as you read this."

I closed my eyes at the sudden pain of her reading that letter.

"What's wrong?" she asked, stopping.

"The Roana I loved is speaking to me now," I sniffed, looking down, "through you and that letter, straight from a moment I treasured in our past."

"Lance," she empathized, holding one of my arms tighter around herself as we sat together. I couldn't help collapsing into tears again. "It's alright," she assured as she turned and embraced me, dropping the letter for a moment. "Tell me what you feel . . . let it out."

"I do feel the you I loved has died," I tearfully confessed as I embraced her tightly. "I came to love you so much, Roana."

"Lance," she whispered in my ear, "I must have been so lucky to find you."

I could only bury my face in her loose golden hair as we embraced each other tightly.

"It's alright," she assured as she held me. "I'm still here . . . somewhere. We will find me together, maybe right in this letter, okay?"

I sadly pulled my head back and looked at her. "Memories of who you were, what we shared," I whispered as I just closed my eyes in pain, "they're just flooding through my head. I want to capture and describe them all. But it's just impossible."

Roana then drew me back into a tight embrace. "Lance," she said, "that you loved me so much, it humbles me. I want to be that person again for you. I want that so much. But right now, this moment anyway . . . I can't. I can only be who I am now for you. But Lance, can I be enough for you to love, as I am?"

I looked at her through my tears.

"This loss of us," she confessed, "that you grieve as you are for who I was, the love we shared . . . it's hurting me, too. But would you begin to share that with me? Would you allow me to assume her place beside you? We can start over again, if you like . . . have another courtship."

"No," I decided, tearfully shaking my head and smiling a little. "You're right, Roana . . . we are mates. I cannot look at you, the woman I have loved, and love still, as anything else."

We embraced each other tightly once more.

"I want to be just as good to you as I was before," she pledged against my shoulder.

"You be who you are, now," I encouraged her. "But you know, you did this for me . . . the morning of our date together. You encouraged me to let out all the hurt and sadness I had bottled up inside me still over my divorce. And you did it pretty much just like this."

"I am her," she assured me, "just with a few memories gone. But you have those now, for both of us."

"I do," I sniffed, recovering myself a little. "And I will do my best, to give them back to you. But how about you keep reading?"

"Hold me tight, okay?" she sniffed as well as she turned some and picked up the letter again. I once again wrapped my arms around her waist from the side, burying my face gratefully against the side of her head for a moment, kissing her ear, sending shivers and goose bumps right through her. She turned and looked at me warmly.

"Read," I encouraged, feeling better now.

Roana just reached a hand to caress the side of my face as she drew me in closer again. She then gave me such an understanding, soulful kiss. I gripped her tighter from the side as we kissed. She possessively reached that hand of hers up behind my head, sensuously gripping, even kneading the hair of my head and the bare skin of my neck. I did not want to break off that kiss, and she just kept it going. My mouth now wanted to lay more kisses along her jaw and neck.

"Do what you like," she breathlessly encouraged.

I now drew myself back.

"Lance, why did you stop?" she asked, breathing more heavily.

"I can't just treat you like you were her," I said. "No matter how much part of me may want to."

"But that's what I want," she encouraged.

"To just have a stranger force himself on you?" I countered.

"No, to reconnect, to experience love with the man I chose as my mate," she replied. "It was feeling good, Lance, very good."

"I couldn't do what you're doing," I said, "just dive right into all this like you are."

I now felt a gentle but firm shoving at my side. It was Rökkr, nudging me with his snout towards Roana. He then looked and murmured at me.

"He says you are making me pay twice for my loss," Roana conveyed. "First, he says that I was robbed of the life I had last night, and now, when I try to reclaim it, you won't let me have it back with you."

"You're not the same," I quietly admitted.

"I'm _trying _to be!" she forcefully exclaimed, slamming a fist down on the letter beside her. Tearfully shocked, I grabbed her wrist, yanking her clenched fist off that precious letter. Further angered, she now followed where I was looking and glanced at the letter herself as I now released her wrist. We both then looked away from each other, taking a deep breath.

"I keep thinking I have you at least with me," she sighed, "and then I find I've lost you all over again."

"I'm sorry," I apologised with some irritation, looking down.

"I'm sorry, too, Lance," she replied. "You're right . . . this is different. And you're the one making it so here. Would you like me to just give up? Go away? Although this is my house, and you're the one breaking our commitment . . . so maybe you should just go away, huh?"

I now got up, grabbing my treasured letter and its envelope, and walked in silence to the front door. Rökkr issued several sharp barks and a number of growls though, stopping me as I was about to open the door.

"He's chewing me out, too," I heard across the house, "but he says to you, 'You can't talk to anyone else, you can't get off this island without us helping . . . and you're going outside wearing pyjamas,'" Roana sniffed with a laugh.

I just leaned my head against the door, cracking a smile.

"Come back . . . please?" she invited. "I'm sorry."

I seemed to remain with my head stuck against the door though. I heard Rökkr murmuring again, and saw Roana getting up out of the corner of my eye. Soon, I was feeling her wrap herself around me from behind. I found my anger and pain just draining away within her embrace.

"We're going to make this work," I heard her simply say.

Somehow I couldn't help myself as I now turned around and took her into my arms, holding her tightly. "Rökkr tell you that?" I quietly wondered.

"No, I'm telling both of us that," Roana replied. "He just told me, 'That is the heart you've been crying yourself to sleep for beside me at times,'" she sniffed, nestling her head against the skin of my neck. "'Do not lose what you have fought so hard for, and waited so long to win.'"

"You did fight, Roana," I noted. "I saw it . . . But he's right about me, too," I then conceded. "I can't do or say a thing around here without the two of you."

We just stood there for minutes holding each other as I leaned against that door, each of us allowing something to take root among and between us.

"I'm sorry you lost her," Roana gently said, breaking our silence.

"I haven't lost her entirely," I whispered, kissing Roana's forehead.


	15. Chapter 15

Roana and I were both wounded, each missing something important, even vital, within us. But at least we were both realizing it now. That alone seemed to be drawing us together as we continued holding each other.

"Read the letter?" she suggested as we continued to lean against each other and our front door. "Sorry I pounded it."

"I understand why," I said, still holding it carefully in one hand as I held her. "But yeah, let's read the letter."

Keeping an arm around me, she now led us both back to the bedding area again, and we sat down and resettled ourselves against Rökkr under his watchful gaze.

"Would you trust me with it?" she asked, looking at me as her head still nestled close against my shoulder.

"Yeah," I gently smiled, handing it and the envelope back to her. I couldn't help then glancing at Rökkr briefly. He just silently looked back at me, with a degree of approval and encouragement, before gesturing just with his eyes over towards Roana and the letter. I turned my head to see Roana now carefully smoothing out the crinkles her fist had made in the letter.

"Thank you," I simply noted.

"It's important to you," she replied, her eyes turning towards me. "She was important to you."

"You are, too," I noted while I wrapped my arms close around her once more. "Read," I encouraged.

"Thank you," she said with a subtle smile before turning her attention to the letter. "Just so you know," she then resumed, "this is your date writing. I would like to reintroduce myself to you, for us to meet again for the first time, on better terms. So allow me to not give you my name right now . . . Wait, so which of us was the problem at the start?" she now asked.

"I was," I sheepishly admitted. "But you should read on. I'll explain more afterwards."

"Why am I not surprised?" she sighed, but with a smile as she glanced at me.

"I'll be saying I'm sorry for the rest of my life," I sighed with a regretful smile of my own. "But you were the one that was interested in me, right from the start. You courted, wooed, and even declared you were mated with me. We had our date at the inn about four days after this letter, and a day after that . . . the day before yesterday . . . we were mated."

"So you have been on a real 'roller-coaster' as they say," she realized.

"Yeah," I sighed. "Now, I'm in the middle of whatever this is," I added, now looking away.

"Lance, I am so sorry," she said, reaching up to caress the side of my face. "You have been through just as much as I have."

"You don't need to be dealing with that, on top of adjusting to a very different life this morning," I noted. "But Roana . . . I love you."

"Me?" she double-checked.

"You," I assured with a kiss.

She just laid the letter aside, hugging me tightly. "Step by step here, okay?" Roana gently suggested.

"Okay," I smiled, holding her close. "But keep reading the letter."

"Lance . . . I love you, too," she said as we shared another kiss, before she picked up the letter again as we remained curled up close together. "I cannot spend long here," she now continued reading, "as my ride is waiting outside. But know that it was difficult for me to leave you on the beach tonight as you were. I did not want to. But I did not want to cause you further pain either . . . What was that about?" she asked.

"Keep reading," I sighed with some embarrassment again. "I'll explain shortly."

Roana just looked at me with warm acceptance before she resumed. "My uncle has told me about your deep interest in the past here," she read, "and about your trip to Berk—how much it moved you to reconnect with your ancestors . . . Who were your ancestors?" she wondered.

"I'm an Ýsa, a son of Hiccup and Astrid," I replied. "My family's name just got changed to Hyse when my great grandfather left New Berk for Canada a hundred years ago."

"No way," Roana now remarked, amazed as she looked at me again.

"Why?" I asked.

"You mean I never told you?" she replied, dumbfounded.

"Told me what?" I queried. "Aside from the fact that my ancestors founded this village, wrote the journal, and that my great grandfather left after losing the election for chief to his fraternal twin, abandoning Alltaf."

"Told you that you're basically legendary royalty around here, even though your family weren't always elected to be chiefs," she answered. "Royalty . . . that died out about ten years after your great grandfather left, when the part of your family that remained here was wiped out by a Tuberculosis epidemic that struck the village when it was brought by a visiting Outside Berker, killing a number of others of us, too."

"You haven't told me that," I sighed, somewhat shocked.

"I'm sorry you haven't known," Roana empathized.

"I was an only child, and most all the relatives I knew, besides my grandparents, were on my mother's side," I noted. "So does that make me the only Ýsa now?"

"Unless things have changed from what I can remember, we know of no others," she replied, "at least of your direct family line."

I just sat there, letting it sink in for a moment.

"Lance, what are you thinking?" she asked.

"Well, that I'd probably better have kids for one thing," I tried to joke.

"That wouldn't be so bad," she suggested.

"Why would you not have told me that before now?" I wondered, looking at her.

"I don't know," Roana shrugged.

"It probably was because I was already being overwhelmed with so much change, so fast," I mused. "You were probably going to break it to me sometime."

"I would have," she assured.

"You know, somehow all this seems like it's putting us, you and I, on a more equal footing," I noted to her. "I no longer feel like you know everything, and have everything planned, even us."

"I don't," she agreed. "Not at this point. I know what I want though."

"What?" I asked.

"This," she simply said, holding me tighter.

I could only smile as I looked at her. She moved in for another slow kiss.

"But to think I won you over," she marvelled as we ended our kiss.

"And you still are . . . again," I replied. "But I'm that much of a prize though, eh?" I then wondered.

"You're like the Prince of Norway or England around here," she smiled.

"Is that why everyone is so nice to me here?" I queried.

"Well, we're nice to begin with," she assured. "But with you, it helps being both a legend and a celebrity."

"You did tell me that Ýsas and Johannsens had never married or mated before us," I added.

"Have we been mobbed?" she asked. "Especially when it was becoming clear to everyone here that we were deciding to mate?"

"Yeah," I said. "Pretty much everyone was gathered around us when we came out of the bunker after we just wound up declaring our mating vows to each other, as well as while we took a hike up a mountain after Blóm's funeral."

"Blóm's _dead_?" she now asked in shock.

"Yeah, unfortunately she is," I quietly confirmed. "She was gestating an egg, and it ruptured inside her while you were showing me the village for the first time two days ago. You had me assist as we tried to operate on her to save her and her child right there on the grass. Both you and Árvekni challenged me to make my choice after seeing all that, but I walked away. We wound up arguing in the lab, which turned into our mating decision. The village confronted me and cheered us when we came out of the lab, Blóm's mate invited me to give her life at her funeral . . . you introduced me to all that. Roana, there's so much more to it all than that though," I sighed with some distress. "I'm only giving you the barest highlights here."

"Did I tell you how much a friend Blóm was to me?" she sadly wondered.

"You gave me an idea," I said, "after the funeral. You told me that Blóm was encouraging you not to worry—that I would want you while we were apart for a few days after you had tried to say hello to me, after you had written this letter. You said that Blóm wanted to fly you back to me, but couldn't still gestating her egg, but that she had made you promise to introduce me to her before the end of my first day here."

"That was Blóm," she sniffed.

"Roana . . . I'm sorry," I empathized as we held each other tightly again. "I'm sorry you're having to find out about things this way."

"Keep remembering it all for me, would you?" she whispered as she buried her head against my neck and shoulder. "Never forget any of it, and keep telling me more details as time goes by . . . please?"

"I promise, Roana," I assured as I gently rocked her, sitting against Rökkr. "I promise. But I have some good news, too," I added, hoping to lift her spirits at least a little.

"What's that?" she asked, her face still pressed against my neck.

"Chief Roald wants to hold a mating feast for us . . . at Old Berk," I said.

"You're kidding," she said, now sitting up more and looking at me.

"Nope," I assured with a gentle smile.

"Just don't let me get hit by a dart after that, would you?" she asked with an earnest sigh as she relaxed against me again.

"Promise," I responded, sharing another kissing her. "But you want to keep reading your letter here, and get a memory or two more . . . or at least an insight?"

"Lance?"

"Yeah?"

"I love you," she gently declared.

"I love you, too," I assured, sealing it with a gentle kiss.

We looked into each other's eyes for a moment. Finally, I began accepting her into my heart again . . . began just letting her inside as I looked into her eyes.

"Wanna read the letter some more?" I finally invited, breaking the silence of our shared gaze.

"Okay," she replied, still seeming a little dazed by all she had just learned as she turned to the letter again. "Wow," she said, pausing though.

"What?" I gently asked.

"I wake up this morning," she sighed, almost in wonder, "and so much has happened. I've lost a dear friend, but my dream has come true, too. My Norse, or American, prince . . . the promise of that mating feast . . ."

"I'm Canadian, actually," I corrected. "But as you told me, I'm a long-lost son, from here. And I did warmly admire you as my Norse Princess on our mating night."

"What was I wearing?" she asked.

"Something absolutely devastating to me," I assured. "But how about we just relive that when we're ready to? Keep reading."

She looked at the letter again. "It is a past that that I care deeply about," she continued, taking a breath, "one that I am even working to protect. It is something I would like to share with you, if you would allow me to.

"To set the stage for our next 'first' meeting—and I hope you will stay at the inn longer until I can come back, hopefully in a few days—please think about this for me. I can understand that pain needs to be dealt with and healed, just like any injury, which I have worked with myself with animals. But dwelling on pain, or holding onto it and pushing others away, it will only keep you lonely. I will not.

"To be honest, you may ask why I do this? Why I am interested in becoming friends with you? I cannot explain it now, maybe not even to myself. All I know is, I would like to.

"I wish you peace, and hope you can rest and relax as you read this, or even re-read this. Take care, alright?

"Until we meet,

"Your Date," she finished.

"My ex-wife divorcing me almost a year ago really hurt me," I sighed, now filling in details around the letter. "Your uncle introducing you to me earlier the day you wrote this, brought it all back to the surface inside me. I chickened out from meeting you and basically ran away to the beach, only to get myself stuck in an isolated spot along the beach cliffs to the north later that afternoon by the rising tide. You came on Rökkr, although you kept him hidden around a bluff, and found me later that night, still stuck there. I turned down your offer of help and companionship that night . . . I was still in surprising pain. You agreed to leave me there, but I so regretted asking you to do that.

"I found this letter of yours on the night stand in my cabin at the inn, after I returned on my own the next morning," I continued. "It really turned me around about you. Made me want to give you a chance, in my heart. Pretty much everything came together for us after this."

"Have you ever told me this before?" she asked as she now laid the letter and its envelope safely out of the way on the other side of Rökkr.

"No," I replied. "Not like this. I kind of wish I had now actually. But the time we had just went by so fast. We were just getting started as mates together . . . when the you I loved was taken."

I just closed my eyes tightly as I leaned back against Rökkr more, trying to stem fresh tears. I just felt her shift and turn towards me now. Soon I was feeling her lips softly kissing mine. I began kissing her back, more and more powerfully as I took her more deeply into my embrace.

"The woman who wrote that letter is here, Lance," she gently said to me amid our kisses as she shifted herself further around now, right onto my lap. "That is my handwriting, my phrasing . . . everything. Given what you say, that's what I would have done. That is what I would have written."

"I know," I accepted as we continued kissing. "I am seeing more and more of the woman I loved within you, each passing moment here."

"Could I ask something of you?" she requested as our kissing became more intense. "Could we, you and I, just do our best here to pick up from where we were yesterday?"

"That fast?" I wondered, now stopping.

"That's the way we seem to work together," she smiled. "We don't waste time."

"But there's so much about our relationship I haven't told you yet," I cautioned. "Our long talks, more of our debate and mating 'ceremony' in the lab, more of our private mating feast, even what we shared yesterday before you were shot with that dart."

"I look forward to you sharing it all with me again . . . for the first time," she invited. "As my mate, and all that means."

"So you're sold . . . on this and me, just as things are now?" I double-checked. "Just ready to keep right on going together from here?"

"I am sold," she agreed. "You are the mate I have wanted, Lance Hyse, because you have such a heart and conscience about you. You have hesitated here again and again, because you care so much for me . . . both who I am, and who I was. I can see that now. Plus, Rökkr tells me you are my one—that I chose you, even pursued you, with my whole heart."

"The elders selected you to pursue me," I noted, "in competition with several other village women."

"You think I'm gonna blow that kind of opportunity then?" she responded. "I mean, come on!"

"You're just that happy with everything being arranged and decided outside of yourself and who you are now?" I sighed, looking at her.

"Well, how has deciding and doing everything by yourself as an outsider been working for you lately?" she posed. "I remember a thing or two about that kind of life. But I trust those around me here. I trust the elders, I trust Rökkr, even myself . . . and they trust me. I would like to trust, and begin relying on you, too, Lance. That's the way everything works here."

Rökkr looked at me, murmuring.

"He asks, 'Do you want misery alone, clinging to your hesitations, or happiness together, adapting and trusting?'" Roana conveyed for him. "'The choice is that simple. Why waste time in deciding it? Decide, and do.'"

"I trusted, I gave . . . before," I said, looking out away from both of them. "But it didn't work. Last night, I lost again."

"He says, 'You have us, both of us,'" Roana noted as the dragon grunted. "'Things are different. We have to start again somewhat also. But we, all of us, are still here. I have done what both of you have asked me. Now, Lance, do what you have promised, especially for her.'"

I looked at Roana.

"He got me to just settle down and stay in this village," she noted. "I remember bouncing off the walls around here with indecision when I first came back."

"Dragons," I sighed . . . as I moved to embrace Roana.

"It's alright, Lance," she assured as we then kissed. "And you know, I feel that soon there will be very little, if any, difference between where we would have been had this not happened, and where we will be . . . starting from right here."

"Why?" I could only ask.

"Did I have this much trouble with you before?" she replied.

"I'm pretty much afraid so," I sighed.

"So then, what's the difference?" she smiled.

I smiled, too. "You are using contractions more than you used to," I then noticed. "Your speech is a little less formal, and more like mine."

"Probably because I'm closer to when I was in college, memory-wise now than when you met me," Roana noted. "I likely fell back even more towards Berker speech patterns over the following year or so. Old Norse doesn't really have contractions like modern English does. But that's a problem for you?" she queried.

"No," I assured, smiling. "Just an observation. You do know I'm a biologist and you're a dragon vet, right?"

"Here to do great things together. Save the dragons!" she assured. "So, how do we celebrate a milestone like this?"

"Roana, as much as I would like to," I cautioned, " . . . I just want to be careful here. We can't be recovered this fast. We could be just skipping right over some major problem areas for us—landmines that could just blow up between us, things that just aren't right for you. Even though we will work this out, and I swear to that, we should still proceed with caution."

"What did Rökkr just say to you?" she asked.

I dropped my head, smiling.

"But you're right. We aren't recovered this fast," she replied. "This is a stage in our recovery. There is more to come, a lifetime more. Big memories, little thoughts, all shared here and there . . . out in a field, or in bed. I learn and adapt, and so do you. I am looking forward to discovering so much with you, and for you to discovering, or even rediscovering, it with me. That is what mating _is_, Lance. Share it with me . . . please?"

"So what do we do?" I wondered.

"Well, we've decided to go on as mates once more . . ." Roana noted, still curled up on my lap.

"Yep," I sighed.

"Don't you think that's worth celebrating?" she continued.

"Uh, well . . ." I hesitated as her feminine charms—everything from glancing at the thin straps of her nightdress crossing her bare shoulders, to the scent and even warmth radiating from her—suddenly all acted like a magnet that I had an increasingly hard time resisting. I glanced at Rökkr, but he was no help. He just gazed steadily back at me with half open eyes and raised eyebrows, either unimpressed with me, or hinting, _'Well . . . ?'_

"Lance . . ." she said, drawing my attention back to her again.

"But we're strangers," I objected.

Rökkr emitted a low growl at me, but Roana then surprised me . . . she surrendered. She just settled against me, opening a flap of my tunic and nestling her head comfortably against the crook of my neck and proceeding to relax. I proceeded to relax as well, instinctively wrapping my arms more tightly around her. We both took a deep breath together, even chuckling that we did it at the same time.

Then fingers began tracing across my other shoulder, and lips began to kiss my neck. This time, I felt like doing something different as well . . . I surrendered, too, tilting my head down and sideways until my lips found hers. We kissed, deeply, each drawing in air powerfully through our noses. We found ourselves sliding off Rökkr until we lay flat together on the bedding.

My old self was tempted to hesitate again, to call a stop to it all. But instead, I just decided to keep giving to Roana—whatever she wanted.

I felt Roana resist a little. I immediately paused. "I'm sorry," I reflexively apologised.

Roana looked at me for a moment, seeming to be now faced with reconciling her choices and commitment with what she was feeling.

"It's alright," I assured, now giving her a little space between us as we lay on the bedding.

"Don't go," she replied. "Don't back away."

"Alright," I accepted, moving a little closer again.

"You're different now," she noted.

"How can you tell?" I smiled.

"You're not being difficult," she smiled back.

"I thought I'd give you a gift," I replied. "You've had a rough morning."

Roana smiled again, and then drew me closer. "Who started it the first time we did this together?" she then asked.

"We both kind of did . . . both times," I gently answered. "I called it off the first time, realizing I couldn't just explore with you the night you brought me here. Things were already getting too serious between us. But the next night, after we exchanged our mating vows, and had our private feast . . . neither of us could resist."

"Lance . . ." she now said with a tear in her eye. "I don't remember any of that. But I wish I could."

"It's alright, Roana," I assured again as I just gently maintained a loose embrace of her. "It's alright."

"Hold me please," she requested. "I'm scared."

We just held each other tightly. I rocked her a little. Now she began softly crying.

"Tell me, Roana," I encouraged. "Just tell me what you're feeling."

"I don't know who I am," she sniffed, "what I've done lately . . . anything."

"I know," I could only say.

"Lance, I am your mate," she then said as we looked at each other. "I choose to be."

"We are mates," I agreed. "But maybe you shouldn't push yourself any further today."

"Mates . . . mate," she observed, her tears diminishing. "The dragons don't consider the mating commitment real until a couple has done it."

"Don't push yourself," I encouraged again.

"Lance," she now said, "I don't want us stuck in limbo. I want that full connection, that knowing and certainty."

"Roana," I cautioned.

Gradually, she just drew us together on the bedding, kissing me softly, cautiously. "Could we just go slowly here though?" she then asked. "Make this a first time . . . for us?"

I decided to stop resisting again and just gently go with her. "Getting another chance for a first time, with you, Roana? That is a gift," I whispered as we drew close again. She quietly smiled and we began gently kissing again, while she now slowly reached around under my night tunic and began caressing my back.

Flashes of the aggressive lover that had been my Roana now haunted my mind though. I found myself wincing in pain again.

"Lance, what is it?" I now heard.

"It's . . . It's nothing," I tried to assure as I opened my eyes and looked at her.

"It's your turn to tell me," she invited.

"Memories, of the night we mated were intruding," I confessed as I just laid my head on the bedding beside her. "You were so confident, even aggressive, in our bed."

"I was, huh?" she queried.

"Yep," I confirmed.

"You miss that," she noted.

"Yeah, I miss that," I agreed.

"I would be, too, if I were you," she empathized. "But I can only do what I can do here, okay? I don't know you, like she did."

"I know," I said, just looking at her.

"But part of me wants to," she added. I then felt her hand wrap around the back of my head, drawing my lips to hers as we allowed ourselves to begin blending against each other again.

She was still halting and less than comfortable at times as we proceeded to draw the quilts over us and connect, or reconnect. "I'm sorry," she said, pausing us again a short time later.

"It's okay," I assured. "You have to get to know me again. Things like this can't always be just decided or rushed, like you have sometimes seemed to usually prefer."

"So you feel justified, even vindicated in your earlier caution now?" she asked with an almost annoyed smile.

"No," I replied as I lay beside her, caressing her bare arm. "I'm just focused on you."

"Lance . . ." she sighed, gratified, as she closed the distance between us once more.

It was a second, more gentle first time for her and I now . . . wonderful all in its own way. But some aspects of the passion I fondly remembered sharing with Roana began returning at times.

Later, midway through our passions, she paused us again. "And I managed to forget this?" she sighed with a gentle smile.

"Shush, you," I gently chided, before we both broke out laughing, holding and rolling each other tightly under our quilts as our dragon dozed next to us, his job of seeing Roana and I at least reunited finally done.

I paused though myself, looking up at Rökkr for a moment as I held Roana under me.

"Thank you, buddy," I said. "You've saved so much for me here . . . for both Roana and I."

The Night Fury just slightly opened an eye and grunted.

"He says, 'You both deserve it,'" Roana translated as she looked at me.

"Sorry I'm so much trouble," I apologised.

"Rökkr and I forgive you," Roana assured. The dragon then murmured some more, looking at us both. "He's asking if he could roar for us again," she explained, "saying that the village will want to know, and so that I can have a roar to remember, too."

"Rökkr," I said without taking my eyes off my mate, "please roar for us."

He proceeded to stir himself from protectively encircling Roana and I, and walk over to the front door. He then simply lifted the large, knobbed wooden latch with his mouth, pulling the door open, and walking through it out onto the porch. Roana and I heard a number of people begin cheering outside before Rökkr even opened his mouth. Rökkr barked, seemingly annoyed and probably telling them to shut up and wait for it—which they did, falling silent.

I just chuckled as I looked at Roana, cradled within my arms.

We then heard Rökkr take a deep breath before letting out a good, long and loud roar. Now the people really cheered, as other dragons roared as well.

"We're mates," I simply said to Roana.

"We are," she agreed as she drew me into a kiss.

"We should get him that mate of his now," I whispered as we ended our kiss.

"He's still single?" she whispered back in surprise.

I just looked at her and smiled. Roana smiled at me, too.

Rökkr was gonna get his, soon.


	16. Chapter 16

Having reconnected as mates, and even starting some debates that were _very_ familiar to me, Roana and I decided to finally get dressed and take a walk outside with Rökkr.

No sooner had we stepped outside though before other villagers began coming up to us, asking how both Roana and I were—in Norse of course. I just smiled and let Roana answer for both of us without even attempting to add any comments, as we kept an arm around each other. It was part of why we took the walk . . . to assure everyone else that we really were okay together now.

"They reminded me of a dragon patient I need to be catching up with," Roana shared with me as we bid another pair of villagers good afternoon. "I think we're going to have a busy day tomorrow."

"You up to it? Resuming your rounds and work?" I checked.

"You help?" she asked in turn.

"Definitely," I assured.

"This has been one confusing day," she sighed.

"I can imagine," I empathized, holding her close beside me as we walked.

"I feel like I've jumped forward in time," Roana continued. "Like there will always be this gap."

"What can I do to help?" I offered.

"Just be a mate and ride this through with me," she requested.

"I will," I pledged. "Promise."

Roana smiled as we paused to kiss for a moment. "Memories, knowing, trust . . . they make a marriage, or a mating, don't they?" she observed as we ended our kiss.

"You also told me that marriages are made each day," I replied, "by what each partner chooses."

"Already told you that much, did I?" she wondered.

"Roana . . . we've had some incredible discussions," I sighed. "It's how you convinced me to come here, and stay."

"Could we have more incredible discussions?" she asked.

"Yes," I said, as we paused to embrace each other.

"You okay though?" she then added.

"I'm getting there . . . with you," I answered. "But that's just what you used to ask me," I noted. "A lot."

"And always will," she assured with another kiss.

I could only look at her for a moment afterwards.

"I'm me, Lance," she assured, "and I'm yours."

"You are," I had to agree. "I'm yours, too . . . doubter and all."

"You're just more fun, even challenging that way," she praised. "We'd be going way too fast here if you weren't slowing us down!"

I just held and rocked her tightly again, quietly smiling as I did.

— — — — —

Rökkr, Roana and I continued walking around the rest of the village, saying hi and talking with others as we went. That she would pause and hold seemingly ordinary conversations with dragons though, as if they were people . . . it was still something I had to work to get my head around.

"One of the cave elders is inviting us up there for dinner," she translated after talking briefly with a Nadder in front of us. "Roast fish, any way we like it. But no rush—it doesn't have to be today."

"We haven't really had a normal dinner at home yet," I noted. "Just our mating feast and a couple breakfasts over the last couple days."

"You want some normalcy then?" she offered.

"Yeah, I kind of would right now," I decided, "that is if you and the Nadder wouldn't mind."

Roana then shared my preference with the Nadder. The dragon nodded, and the two then seemed to say goodbye, with the Nadder taking off into the air towards the caves.

"Just neighbours and friends, eh?" I couldn't help saying as I watched the dragon go.

"Not used to that, huh?" she inquired.

"It'll take a while," I sighed.

"Anything I can do?" she asked.

"You're doing good, Roana," I answered, "very good. But let's get a normal dinner going at home. After all this, that would be pretty special."

"What would you like?" she asked.

"Do we have to catch it first?" I wondered.

"My past self must have something stored away in my cold room locker," she smiled. "I remember forgetting I had whole dinners, even whole legs of mutton stored away there at times. Let's go see."

We went up the side of a hill to the lab bunker. It just hit me as we walked in there again. "This is where we realized we were mates," I said looking around the lab as Roana flicked on the lights.

"Lance . . . would you say to me the one thing that really cinched it for us here?" she asked.

I turned to her, took her in my arms, and said, "We are one."

"We are one," she repeated, looking at me.

"It was a stormy talk we had in here," I quietly added.

"With you?" she smiled. "I can imagine."

"Guilty," I surrendered.

"Don't be too hard on yourself," she assured as we kissed. "I'm beginning to love the guy you are . . . again. Now, let's see what I left in my locker."

We opened a side door off the lab, as Roana turned on another light. This room had grids of varnished wooden doors, each about a metre square, that were arranged in three rows from floor to ceiling on all sides of the space. It uncomfortably reminded me of an old morgue I had once seen while I was in college. My mate led us to a locker door half way up on one wall.

"Your name in runes," I noted, looking at its hand-painted label.

"We'll add your name, too," she assured as she opened the locker. "Perfect!" she then said.

"You are organized," I had to admire, as we saw one platter with a pre-cooked mutton roast on it, complete with roasted vegetables arrayed around it as well, along with what looked like a couple platters of fish on the shelf underneath it.

"Just take the mutton platter and I'll grab a fish platter for Rökkr," Roana requested.

— — — — —

Soon, back at home, Rökkr and I had made a nice fire, and our mutton roast was now sizzling and definitely smelling like it was ready to eat. Roana had been busying herself laying out the dinner setting on the floor near the fire, complete with candles, laying out Rökkr's fish platter for him as well.

Finally, using a couple of heavy mitts, I took the roast platter out of the fire, and we all sat down to dinner. Suddenly, I paused for a moment as I looked around.

"What is it?" Roana asked beside me.

"I am home now," I said with a tear in my eye. "I am so really home."

My mate just leaned over, embracing me from the side as we shared a kiss. Rökkr just looked at us both, seeming to gently smile.

"Let's eat," Roana then suggested. "I know you're hungry."

"Why?" I asked.

"Your stomach," she smiled, giving it a gentle pat. "It's rumbling worse than Thor making earthquakes."

"Alright," I smiled back, taking up the carving knife and fork, looking forward to carving into that succulent-looking roast as Rökkr wolfed down the first of his fish.

Sure enough though, we got another knock at the door.

"I'll get it. Keep carving," Roana said, breaking away.

"I'm coming, too," I decided, laying down the large knife and fork and getting up to follow her.

When she and I opened our front door together, we were greeted by Chief Roald, and surprised by what we saw behind him . . . a feast in the village commons.

"Well, I guess our first normal dinner will have to wait until tomorrow night," she smiled after the chief had said a few words to us. "This isn't our big mating feast though. Chief Roald still wants that in Old Berk . . . once it's safe for you to leave this island. But this is a feast just to celebrate that we're us . . . together."

I brought Roana to me and held her tightly. "They just up and do this kind of thing?" I asked.

"Uh huh," she pleasantly confirmed. "How about we add our dinner to the feast?" Roana then suggested. "Then maybe we can just take some leftovers back to our locker afterwards, as others will."

"Whatever works around here," I smiled.

A moment later, the chief was warmly ushering my mate and I, along with Rökkr, into the middle of it all as we carried our platters to the feast tables.

"Raw fish, together with everything else?" I wondered as Roana set down the fish platter she was carrying.

"Everyone here can tell the difference," she assured while we both admired the bounty set before us along the tables.

"It just screams 'health code violation' to me," I noted.

"Outsider," she playfully kidded me.

"Never mind," I smiled. "Let's eat."

"No, wait," she said, halting me. "As feast honourees, we eat last. We should greet and thank others first as they come to fill their plates, or wolf their fish in the dragons' case. It's only polite."

"Well that's kind of different," I sighed.

"It's a basic tenet among us," she noted, "each other comes first. It's how we survive together on a small island, amid harsh winters. Summer feasts are a symbol of all that. I thought I would have explained that to you by now."

"I'm just a real outsider," I excused.

"You need a snack for now?" she offered with a smile in conciliation.

"No," I smiled, putting an arm around her again. "Let's meet 'n greet here."

As Roana, Rökkr and I then began circulating among others away from the feast tables, our neighbour lady came up to us, and began talking as she smiled.

"She says you must have courted me fast," Roana conveyed as the neighbour spoke. "She was at least hoping to have us over for dinner to 'help things along,' as she had pledged."

"I didn't have a chance," I smiled to the older woman as Roana translated. "My mate just chose to keep her commitment before I could even ask."

"Ek brjóta ekki lofort mitt. I don't break my promises," Roana said to both of us with a smile.

"Alltaf er ánægtur," the neighbour lady replied back. Roana now seemed touched deeply by her words.

"What is she saying? If I may ask," I inquired.

"She's saying, 'Alltaf is pleased,'" Roana sniffed. "It's a compliment, a very high and meaningful compliment we give to those who have really kept a promise . . . especially when it's not easy."

"Roana," I said, turning to her and briefly taking her in both my arms, "Alltaf is so very pleased with you."

She just teared up with a look of such profound gratitude and joy as we held each other tightly now.

"And I mean that," I whispered to her.

"Lance . . ." she wept against me.

"I'm just sorry I'm not quite that good," I apologised, still whispering.

"You are, you can be," she assured as she looked at me now, caressing my face. "You just haven't been lucky enough to spend a lifetime here yet . . . learning about Alltaf."

We both smiled, before gently kissing one another.

"I want to," I said.

"You mean that?" she asked as she glanced behind me.

"Why?" I now responded trying to subtly look behind me as well, suddenly sensing the possibility of another 'trap'.

"Rökkr, would you excuse Lance and I for a moment?" she then asked as she led me off to one side a short distance away on the grass.

"What's going on?" I now wondered openly as we walked while Rökkr and our neighbour lady watched.

"I'm just wondering if you meant what you said just now," Roana queried as she stopped us and looked at me straight.

"You are very good at setting traps for me," I noted. "It's how you got me here, and got me to make up my mind to stay, even mate with you, before too much time had passed and the memory drugs wouldn't work on me anymore."

"Familiar enough for 'ya?" she smiled.

"Getting there," I replied. Roana then just gave me a really sceptical look. "Okay . . . yes," I then surrendered.

"That's more like it," she replied with satisfaction. "Now, are you serious about wanting to learn our ways . . . about Alltaf and everything else?"

"Do I have to make up my mind about all that right now?" I wondered. "I mean I just said yes to mating with you two days ago. I think I should be allowed a little slack in wanting to ease into all the rest of this, don't you?"

"Why?" she now posed.

"Because . . ." I now stammered, searching for a reason—any reason.

"Would you do it for Rökkr, as well as me?" she continued.

"Rökkr? Why?" I asked.

"Because right over there is the lady dragon he is interested in," she noted, looking off in one direction.

I now turned my head and looked in that same direction, seeing a solitary Night Fury off by herself on a grassy slope a little distance away, yet still surrounded by the festivities.

"Wait," I remarked, seeing a decorated and fairly official-looking leather strap around her neck that began looking familiar to me, "isn't that the Guardian of Memories? The one who visited us this morning?"

"Rökkr has basically refused to ask her," Roana noted as we both continued looking her way. "But he has thought of no one else, for at least two years . . . and that was even before I can't remember."

"So you want me to somehow bond with that dragon so Rökkr can have the mate he wants?" I remarked almost incredulously.

"She is first and foremost a teacher," my mate noted. "That is her calling, and her life. She loves children, even human ones, because they appreciate what she has to share with them. They want to learn. But she frustrates adults, and they frustrate her, because she will share something, and they will get bored at times with what she is sharing. Many don't seem to want to explore things more deeply as she does.

"But you," Roana continued, "you have a lifetime of learning to catch up on. You want to learn. You have everything to learn about us still . . . or at least a lot that doesn't involve biology," she qualified. "Lance, Rökkr told me early this morning that you're a scientist, even a scholar at heart. That is so rare among us. You and she would have so much to learn and discuss together. You'd never tire of each other. Plus, she would readily learn your language, far faster than Rökkr has with me. Both you and Rökkr are perfect for her. She is the perfect teacher for you here, even more than I am."

"You had hinted that you wanted to set Rökkr up on a dinner date, when we got back from your uncle's inn," I sighed.

"And this is her," my mate quietly emphasized. "You were the missing element in all this."

"But why rush all this now?" I asked. "We're supposed to be relaxing here after a day of very hard work. After all, we've been rebuilding our life together, Roana."

"Because both these dragons have been loyally serving our village, as Rökkr has with me, for a good while now," she replied. "They've hardly given a thought to their own needs."

"Rökkr did save both our butts big-time last night, flying us home as we were being chased," I admitted. "But you know, you're not only 'dragon' as you say," I then noted, "you're almost too American as well . . . pushy, wanting things done yesterday."

"Isn't that one reason why we make a good fit together?" she wondered with a subtle smile.

"I'm just not quite that fast though," I sighed.

Roana looked down now, seemingly disappointed. "Rökkr needs you," she said, "to do this, at least to befriend her. He loves our Guardian of Memories, Lance. But he has loved her enough not to ask her; not to stand in the way of her finding a human companion who is truly right for her—someone who can appreciate the learning and sharing of knowledge and wisdom he knows she craves to her core. Your arrival changes all that though . . . or at least it can."

"First a new life and wife, just like that," I sighed. "And now a dragon companion, too?"

"Did I tell you how Rökkr just chose me?" she asked.

"Yes you did!" I replied with a little sharpness. "Roana, I'm sorry," I then quickly corrected myself.

"Our Guardian of Memories similarly needs to be chosen," she continued, "by a human. She just does."

"And no one here has approached or asked her?" I queried.

"Anyone among us who becomes a leader before they bond with either a companion or a mate, rarely bonds afterward," she answered, "because others come to have trouble seeing the individual behind the position, and especially considering themselves an equal."

"I can understand that," I conceded, glancing at the dragon again. "But not even the doctor approached her? He'd have to be both a scientist and interested in learning to be who he is."

"How much do you know about Ran and I? . . . I mean about him?" she stammered slightly.

"Only a little," I replied, now sensing I had touched on something of a sensitive topic with her. "You and I talked about it in the lab, when we worked our way, or I did, towards accepting mating with you. You said you had almost made yourself marry him, using that term deliberately, but that Rökkr talked you out of it, and that the doctor, Ran, was really interested in someone else anyway. But that's all."

"All that," she said, looking off past me in a slightly different direction, "was literally yesterday for me."

"Roana, I'm sorry," I more gently replied now, holding her a little closer.

"You want to know what literally sunk it for me with him?" she asked.

"Only if you want to tell me," I replied.

"Ran didn't want to take a dragon companion," she continued. "He said he didn't mind treating them, and he prefers village life here to the outside, but he just didn't want to be known so closely by a dragon. He preferred to keep his thoughts to himself, and liked his privacy, too. That's when I knew he and I were different at heart . . . too different. I couldn't imaging loving a man who didn't want to share life with, and even love, dragons as I did.

"Rökkr just took me aside and told me Ran was not my one," Roana sniffed, "that Ran would even come to threaten my bond with him. I knew Rökkr was right, and there was never really the love there that I wanted—but part of me was crushed with disappointment anyway. Rökkr just excused us both to Ran, and took me out for a fish run. The cold seawater at least shocked me out of my melancholy.

"Then," she continued, "he took me to a mountaintop for a fish roast, trying to make it feel like a romantic date. He made the fire, roasted the fish for me, even quickly flew back by himself to get the mead tea for us . . . everything. He said that he wished he could make it all better for me. He even suggested that we fly to the outside and just pluck an outsider, one that felt right to him, and bring him here."

"You kind of did," I gently interjected.

"Some days later," she continued, subtly smiling, "when we were down south, I caught Rökkr talking to my uncle, via painting words on paper with a brush, after I had enjoyed a rare and warming shower in Cabin Eight. That's when my uncle began writing letters."

"I see . . ." I smiled now as well.

"I love Rökkr so much, Lance," Roana sniffed. "He's a dragon that has put me first, ahead of himself, over and over again. He's quiet, he's strong. But he puts others first, including the Guardian whom he has loved enough to know she needs the right human to bond with as well."

"Boy this is complicated," I sighed.

"That's because this Guardian has known what companionship with a human can be," my mate added. "She has had a human companion before . . . one she loved very much. You must not mention it to her though. She will bring it up if she wants to talk about it."

"A wounded dragon," I gently surmised, glancing behind me towards her.

"So deeply wounded that she went to live in the caves for a while, even though she had lived in human houses her whole life," Roana noted. "There, she devoted herself to the study of our legends and rituals, and eventually became our current Guardian of Memories. But the less I tell you about it, the better for now. Just know that I have pushed Rökkr to ask her as hard as I have probably been pushing you at times."

"I'm beginning to get the picture," I quietly said.

"But here in Berk, once we know, we act, Lance," she continued. "It's why others visited us this morning, and why this feast is being thrown for us tonight. How much longer should that dragon wait alone like that?"

"Roana," I gently replied, "you're pushing too hard."

She now just looked down.

"You had me sold a minute ago," I added as I drew her close to me again.

"Really?" she sniffed against my ear.

"Yep," I replied as Roana now gratefully relaxed against me. "I'm just amazed that this could go on so long like it apparently has."

"Everyone here knows she and Rökkr belong together," my mate answered. "Some of us have talked to each of them . . . over a year ago, Lance, because I can remember it, and yet they're still separate. But he won't ask her until she has a human companion, and she waits for the right human to ask her—one who has a depth of heart and can come to share both her desire for knowledge and learning, and what she's experienced without her having to say it, at least upfront. And naturally, it would all work better if her companion was my mate. It kind of has to work that way, if you can see what I mean."

"Yeah," I sighed with a reluctant smile. I looked at the Night Fury again, off by herself, yet surrounded by happily chatting villagers. She was just quietly sitting there, looking out ahead of her. The contrast, even the emptiness of the scene, now stood out to me like a sore thumb.

"It's our feast, Lance," Roana prodded, "and our responsibility to make others feel welcome."

"So, we ask her, or I ask her, tonight?" I wondered.

"Not necessarily," Roana responded. "We say hello. But we say hello with a purpose—a purpose that is unavoidably clear to all. She's not stupid. She will know from the second I introduce you what the purpose is. Dragons know. You have to approach them with respect—the respect of clear intent, when you have one. And now that I've told you this; believe me, you have one."

"I'd really like to ease into all this a little more," I sighed.

Roana now just looked at me.

"But," I continued, "maybe I'll just do something crazy here anyway."

"Now I know you're my mate," she said as she hugged me with gratitude. "Ran would never have done this."

"Nice to know," I smiled as I just enjoyed burying my nose in her hair again for a moment.

"Lance?"

"What?"

"Alltaf is pleased with you, too," she said. "You know that?"

I could only smile and hug her tightly again. "I hope he will get even more pleased with me," I finally accepted as we shared another brief kiss. "So, why don't you introduce me to that Guardian?"

"I love you, Lance Hyse," she said with quiet intensity as we hugged tightly once more.

"And I love you, Roana . . . Hyse," I said hesitantly. "Is Hyse okay with you? Or should it be Ýsa? Or do you want some combination of our surnames, or even keep Johannsen yourself, like some are on the outside these days?"

"In our Norse here, it's Ýsa, because 'Hyse' as such doesn't exist," she now smiled. "But in English, between you and I, let's make it Hyse, at least to me . . . although keeping Johannsen in there somehow might be an idea."

"Let's do the right thing here," I smiled as well though, " . . . for others."

"You are so a Berker now," she admired. "Have I told you that?"

"Once . . . I think," I replied, before kissing her again.

— — — — —

Soon, we were both walking over to a surprisingly lonely Guardian of Memories.

"Hi," I simply said to the dragon, as I led Roana to just sit down with me beside this Night Fury as she translated my greeting with a single grunt.

The dragon remained seated on the grass herself, acknowledging me however with a nod and a few murmurs.

"She says she is honoured by your greeting," Roana conveyed. "She wonders if all is well with you, and asks how we are doing?"

"We are doing fine now," I assured, glancing aside at Roana. "But, Guardian," I then continued, trying out a new directness myself, "having been a leader, and a teacher at times where I come from . . . I'm frankly wondering how you're doing?"

The Night Fury just looked at me while Roana finished converting my words into grunts, as I looked at this dragon, right into her eyes.

There was a power there now—an awareness, a knowing—like none I had ever experienced before. The dragon just continued looking back at me, deeply. I just found myself awed, even somehow opening my mind and soul to her.

"What do I say to you?" I now wondered openly, maintaining our shared gaze.

"She says, 'You do not need to say anything if you do not want to at this moment,'" Roana conveyed.

I briefly looked down, but found myself soon looking at her again, just smiling at this dragon. She gently murmured at me as she maintained her deep gaze.

"She says, 'On the outside, beginnings are difficult,'" Roana translated. "'Your kind worries about them; about getting them wrong, or choosing wrong. Here, it is the journey, and where it leads us, that we focus on. As long as the journey is right—the choice of companion, and the beginning, are easy.'"

"So, you want to begin a journey with me?" I asked.

The dragon glanced at Roana as she translated, and then simply nodded once with a grunt, which my mate knew she did not need to convey back to me.

I just sat there, stupefied for a moment. "That just cuts right through everything," I sighed with almost a laugh, looking down and to one side for a second, breaking the gaze I shared with that dragon.

"She asks, 'What is wrong with that?'" Roana posed on behalf of the Guardian.

"Your ways . . . they are different for me," I noted, looking back at the dragon.

"'Then there is much for us both to learn,'" Roana conveyed as the dragon grunted. "'I, for one, cannot wait to begin such a journey.'"

"Things just happen way too fast around here," I sighed.

The dragon now seemed to chuckle a little with her deep, resonating voice as Roana passed on my words to her.

"She says, 'As with a hunt for food," Roana translated back with a smile, "'when we see what we want—we act, we strike. Otherwise it quickly disappears, and we remain without. I know what I want . . . and you do also.'"

"I do," I sighed, " . . . I guess."

"She asks, 'What if I were to go away now?'" Roana posed for the Guardian.

"I would not want you to," I instinctively replied.

"'I do not want you to go away from me either,'" Roana continued to relay, repeating the Guardian's murmurs almost as if she was becoming the dragon. "'So, what does that make us?'"

I suddenly felt I could not dishonour this dragon, or what we were sharing, with anything less than the truth. "Companions," I admitted.

The dragon now simply nodded as she briefly closed her eyes.

"I . . . am honoured, deeply so, Guardian of Memories. That the spiritual leader of Berk no less . . . that she, you," I said in wonder as I returned my gaze to her, "would want to be companion, with me."

"She says, 'I am still a learner. It is I who am honoured that you would seek me out to be your companion, saviour of our race,'" Roana conveyed, looking at her.

"I'm no 'saviour'," I shrugged, looking down again briefly.

"She says, 'You will be,'" Roana answered, translating the dragon's gentle murmurs.

Hesitantly, I moved just my face towards this dragon's snout as she held her head rock steady, her eyes just looking so openly at me, even into me.

"I don't feel worthy," I hesitated.

"She says, 'Neither do I,'" Roana conveyed with emotion in her voice. "'That is why this is so right.'"

I now closed the remaining distance between us, between the Night Fury and I as I nudged the snout of the being who was now my dragon companion, shedding tears as I did. My arms moved to encircle her large head as well, as they felt tears leak out of this dragon's tightly closed eyes. I then slowly kissed the top of her snout . . . I couldn't help myself.

"Lance," I heard Roana say. I opened my eyes, turning my head as it still rested against my dragon companion's snout to look at my mate. Roana then just looked with a smile beyond me.

I now released the Guardian from my embrace, looking the other direction and seeing Rökkr watching us from a short distance away.

The Guardian now turned her head as well, just looking steadily at him. Rökkr then moved forward, joining the rest of us, grunting as he did.

"He says, 'She asks, even with just her eyes,'" Roana translated.

"Tell me about it!" I quipped.

Rökkr turned to face the Guardian directly, murmuring further.

"He says to her, 'I have watched and waited for things to be right,'" Roana conveyed, "'because I respected the path you desired. Now, I ask.'"

The Guardian simply closed her eyes and nodded, making a single grunt, before looking deeply at him again.

"Move back a little, Lance," Roana now sniffed with joy. "This is a moment both of them have been waiting for, for sometime."

I moved back on my knees to Roana's side, as we watched Rökkr and this Guardian share a gentle but profound gaze, before closing their eyes and nudging their snouts together . . . as mates.

"It happens, just as you have told me it did," I marvelled to Roana as we watched the two of them. "One just grunts, the other accepts."

"Sometimes it takes a little longer," she smiled quietly to me. "These two have been exchanging glances and all but talking to each other for a good while. Guardians . . . they just do have a harder time finding mates, or companions."

"It's why Árvekni doesn't have a rider, isn't it?" I realized.

"Saw that, have you?" she noted. "No one feels they can get close to him. And he certainly doesn't make it easy."

"No, he doesn't," I agreed. "But what about the get acquainted dinner date we were supposed to have for these two?" I wondered.

The Guardian looked to Roana for a translation of what I was saying. After she was told, the dragon responded back through my mate, "'You are formal on the outside, as I have heard about, aren't you? Well, let us have that 'dinner date' . . . right now.'"

She then proceeded to just sit there, looking at the rest of us on the grass, as we looked at each other as well. Finally, the Guardian broke the silence, murmuring again.

"She says, 'The truth has already carried us too far, hasn't it?'" Roana conveyed for her.

"Yeah,'" I sighed, "it has."

"'Companion,'" Roana now gently relayed to me as the dragon gave me one of her probing gazes again. "'I know this is different, and difficult, for you—a great change. If you want to go slower, we can. But as you can see, that would be pretending now, wouldn't it?'"

I just nodded, looking at the dragon.

"'If something be true, and right,'" the dragon continued through translation, "'why deny it?'"

I half smiled, unable to come up with a satisfactory answer.

"'We will learn and share much together, Companion,'" the dragon and her interpreted thoughts assured.

I simply found myself nodding again.

"You don't really want to hold all this good stuff up, do you?" Roana now queried herself, trying to lighten things up for me.

"I know, I know," I almost laughed. "Guilty. Outsider. I admit and confess it all."

The two dragons now looked towards us, their heads still touching.

"Now it is time for the family bond," Roana observed. "Switch sides with me, as we affirm the bonds with our own dragon companions, as well as each other."

As Roana and I briefly got up and moved around each other to be in front of our own dragon companions, I glanced around us.

"Roana," I noted in amazement. "Everyone's stopped . . . and they're looking at us."

"What did you expect?" she shrugged as we knelt down again in front of our Night Furies. "You and the Guardian of Memories? This is the closest we come here in Berk to a 'Royal Wedding'. Your taking a dragon companion is every bit as important here as our own mating. Now, just nudge both your companion and my face together at the same time."

"As soon as you saw her, you had this planned didn't you?" I said aside to Roana as I looked at the Guardian, my dragon companion now.

"I didn't remember you existed when I first woke up this morning," she replied as she looked at her dragon. "But," she said, then looking down, "Rökkr ended our talk this morning, saying simply, 'Spirit willing, it is our time.' I didn't really get it when he said it, just beginning to adjust to this new reality—but now I know this was what Rökkr meant, what he was hoping for."

I just looked at Roana, then Rökkr, and finally the Guardian. All three of them just looked back at me. Once in a rare while, you just know when something is meant to be . . . and that you had better dare not stand in the way of it.

"It is our time," I quietly said, before I moved, still on my knees, to nudge my nose and face with theirs.

All of Berk around us broke out into a thunderous, joyful noise of cheering and roaring. I half laughed and half cried as I kept my face pressed against Roana's and the Guardian's, with my nose just touching the tip of Rökkr's snout.

The four of us . . . to my amazement, we were a family now. The first Ýsa family in Berk again in ninety years. And that a Johannsen, or a Thorston if you go all the way back to the early portions of the journal, was part of it for the very first time . . . that made it all the more special.

All of it was something worth roaring about.


	17. Chapter 17

Thanks to yet another life-altering event . . . Roana and I still hadn't eaten. And with the crowd surging around our human-dragon family again, it didn't look like we were going to for a while yet.

As we all got up from our family bond or nudge to greet our well wishers as a family, the Guardian of Memories was now sticking close to me on one side, as Rökkr was sticking to Roana on her far side.

"Roana," I wondered, "shouldn't the Guardian and Rökkr be together here? After all, they just decided to mate."

"They are our family guardians together," she replied as we continued to be surrounded by the crowd. "Their being either side of us is their position of honour. It is where dragons normally are when they walk with a family. It would feel weird to them if we were walking on either side of them. Besides, look behind you—they're touching wings together, as a mated dragon pair does."

I glanced behind me, and sure enough the dragons' wings were just gently overlapping each other a little.

"Good," Roana whispered to me, "the Guardian is allowing Rökkr to place his wing on top of hers. As a tribe leader, she could place hers on top, but then that would diminish his status, maybe embarrassing him as a male."

"Things can be complicated," I smiled, "even around here."

I then glanced at the Guardian again, gently placing my hand on her head. She closed her eyes briefly in seeming appreciation.

"Have you been alone much of the time here, Guardian?" I wondered aloud to her, counting on Roana to translate for me. But to my surprise, it was Rökkr who was making the grunts in translation now. I guess I should have expected that though.

"She answers, 'I have given comfort to many,'" Roana nonetheless conveyed to me as my new dragon companion grunted, "'but I have not really been comforted myself . . . until now, Companion.'"

I just stopped us as we walked, kneeling down to look her right in the eyes again. "What would you like?" I simply asked. "From me?"

The dragon grunted, seeming to be both moved and smiling. "'A fish . . . and a name,'" Roana translated for her.

"A fish I understand," I said. "But a name?"

"Haven't I explained to you that dragons who desire a human companion wait for those companions to give them their names, no matter how old they get?" Roana queried. "It's only dragons like Árvekni, Blóm and others who choose not to take a human companion, who signify so by choosing their own names that humans know them by."

"Yeah, I think I recall you mentioning something about that," I replied. "But wait, doesn't she already have a name . . . from her previous human companion?"

"Lance," Roana addressed me in a hushed tone, "I told you not to talk about that around her. Dragons take their human name from their current human companion, even if you're not their first."

"Alright," I quietly accepted, turning to my dragon again. "So what would you like me to call you?"

"No, Lance, you have to give her a name," Roana more gently coached now. "Something that's meaningful to you, that captures who she is to you. That is your gift, and further bond with her."

"Well," I mused, looking to one side for a moment. "What goes good with Rökkr . . . 'Shadow'? She is his mate after all, and that's important to me, too. Hmmm . . . Shadow and . . . Roana, what's Norse for 'substance'?"

"That would be 'efni'," my mate replied, before she conveyed my idea to the Guardian. The dragon grunted back while looking steadily at me however. "She replies that she wants you to name her in your language . . . her gift and further bond with you."

"Very well," I accepted with a smile, laying my hand again on her head as I continued kneeling in front of her, "I name you Substance, my companion . . . not only because it goes well with Shadow or Rökkr, but because it has meanings like 'fundamental' and 'essence', and denotes to me a being of great depth and wisdom . . . a being," I found myself sniffling, "whom I want to grow to know and even love, deeply."

The dragon now closed her eyes and bowed her head briefly to me, before she looked at me again and murmured.

"She says, 'You honour me, Revered One,'" Roana conveyed. "'I am now your Substance—guardian of so much more than just memories for you. Together, we shall do great things . . . save my kind, and even at last fully heal the rift between Alltaff, and your forbearer, Asger, or 'Spear of the Gods.'"

"Lance . . ." I said looking down, realizing with a chill that it was another coincidence or destined synergy.

"'Our bond, our love, will do that and more,'" Roana finished for Substance.

"It will, won't it?" I smiled with a tear in my eye before embracing this dragon, embracing Substance, again. "But now," I then said, "it's a fish for you. Wait here, Substance."

She, Roana and Rökkr all watched as I then went over to a feast table and picked up the largest raw cod I saw. It must have weighed thirty pounds as I lugged it back in my arms to my dragon . . . I'd just wash the shirt tomorrow.

"Lance," Roana seemed to caution, "she will want to share it with you. But feed it to her first."

"Giving Life, right?" I picked up as I knelt down again on one knee and presented the cod to Substance.

"You got it," my mate confirmed, laying a hand on my shoulder.

Never taking her eyes off me, Substance opened her mouth as I gently laid the cod inside it. Unlike Toothless first had in Hiccup's journal, Substance gave me plenty of time to remove my hands before closing her mouth, seeming to chew on the fish a little, and then swallowing it.

"Just sit on the ground, with your legs crossed, in front of her," my mate then advised, as a crowd continued to encircle us and watch with rapt interest. I suppose even this was history making to them, so I just accepted it all.

Soon, Substance began seeming like she was about to throw up. Well, she was in a way—but I reminded myself that this was how dragons honour one another, and humans as well.

But then Substance paused, turning her head to one side, and gently barking with what seemed like a mouthful. I noticed villagers now moving away from in front of her. Substance then opened her mouth slightly, and proceeded to briefly emit a gentle, bluish flame.

Shutting it off, she then turned her head back towards me and deposited a nicely-roasted back half of the cod into my lap.

"Substance," I could only sniff with a smile, feeling moved, "thank you. Thank you so much." I couldn't help but place my hands on either side of her head and draw her back into a nudge again, even giving the tip of her leathery snout a kiss. I then picked up the roasted cod, and being quite hungry, I took a large bite of it, scales and all, with relish, quickly chewing and swallowing it to the approving cheers and roars of everyone around us.

"Could I have something to wash this down with?" I asked Roana behind me.

"Mead, Mead Tea, or water?" my mate offered.

"I'll take Mead Tea," I decided, looking at my dragon companion, " . . . in a bucket, to share with Substance."

My dragon just seemed to smile back at me, even without a translation this time.

Soon Roana returned with not one, but two buckets of Mead Tea as she sat down next to me. "For all of us," she explained.

"Here," I said taking another mouthful, "you want some cod, too? It's well more than I can eat, even with a good appetite."

"Thank you, my love," Roana said as she gladly accepted the fish from me. But then she offered Rökkr a bite first. He looked into her eyes as he bit off a healthy chunk, as she did as well while biting off a mouthful. I then watched them as they each took a drink of Mead Tea from the bucket they were sharing.

"Hearts are divided here, aren't they?" I pondered out loud, watching them. "Between human and dragon bonds."

"Rökkr and I will always love each other," my mate said as she looked at her dragon, "as you and Substance will discover together as well. But you and I will also love each other, always. That is the essential mystery, and the joy, of life here in Berk. Dragons and humans, becoming one—as only we can know. It is why we gave up everything else on the outside. It is what I wanted you to begin to discover for yourself. I'm sure even my past self was planning to take this next step with you, as soon as she thought you were ready."

"Yeah," I sighed, "she would have."

"I did," Roana said, now taking hold of my hand.

"Yes," I agreed, looking at her. "You did."

Both Substance and Rökkr seemed to grunt their approval at Roana and I.

— — — — —

Once Rökkr had finished off the rest of the cod that Roana and I couldn't finish, along with some more fish I went back and got for them, the four of us finally got up again.

"I for one, would like dessert," I said. "Fruit or vegetables wouldn't be bad either . . . balanced diet, you know."

"Of course, Lance," Roana said with a smile and taking my hand again. "I'll even get it with you."

"What about the dragons?" I wondered.

"They pretty much just like fish, or other kinds of raw meat," she replied. "But," she then saw looking at a big pot near us, "they consider Hiccup's Stew to be dessert to them, and fortunately, there it is. They've even provided dessert buckets for the dragons."

"Let's go get some for them, and then get our own dessert," I suggested.

"No need," Roana assured, holding me back as both our dragons now peeled off from us and walked towards the cauldron. "They have two servers already there for the dragons."

Sure enough, two village humans were there dipping small, relatively shallow wooden buckets into the cauldron, and then offering them to the dragons, who simply took the buckets by the handles in their mouths and walked off with their stew.

"To us, that would taste like a main course or meat entrée," my mate added. "It can be to them at times as well, but mostly it's their favourite dessert."

"What about us?" I asked.

"Did you know that Vikings basically invented cake?" she smiled as she led me back towards the main feast tables.

"No, I didn't," I replied with some surprise.

"We call it 'kaka', and you're about to enjoy a thousand year old recipe here," she said as she now picked up a small square of dark brown cake on a pewter metal plate, handing it to me before picking one up herself. "It's basically just baked flour and honey, with a little sugar on top. It still tastes good to us, so we figure why change it? Here's an apple for you as well," she added, grabbing one off a neighbouring fruit tray. "But sorry," she then apologised, "being Vikings, we're still not much for utensils around here. You don't mind using your fingers, do you?"

"Well," I said, quickly wiping my fingers on my pants one hand at a time, "I have been handling raw Cod and other fish, and as a biologist I can't begin to tell you what is likely still on my hands."

"A little dirt and germs are good for you, Doctor," she assured. "They'll help you build up a robust, Viking immunity. But if you come down with anything, relax . . . I know how to take good care of you."

"Thanks," I sighed reluctantly, albeit with a smile.

Our neighbour lady then passed us again, nodding at us with a smile as she did, before she kept on walking.

"I still don't know her name," I said as we watched her go, "and you had been telling me that 'the neighbours' plural had been making our home ready to come back to, with a fire going and food all ready, the couple times we came back."

"She did that for us?" Roana remarked.

"Yeah, she must have," I replied.

"Her husband was getting old and sick as I remember," she noted. "But the two of them never went anywhere apart from each other. I had known them both my whole life. They were always helping others, together. She must have lost him to illness not long ago. But even a couple days ago, I probably couldn't think of her doing anything for us without him. She probably still can't either."

"That Zippleback now with her," I observed, "he or she must be her dragon companion."

"Her companion used to be a Nadder," my mate replied. "But I can remember that Nadder dying . . . treated him myself."

"Then what's with the Zippleback?" I wondered.

"We help each other around here, even the dragons do," Roana reminded me. "The Zippleback just saw a need in her, and proceeded to do something about it."

That was reinforced when I saw one of the dragon's heads carrying a stew bucket, while the other carried a pewter plate with cake on it just in between its teeth.

"Roana," I requested, "would you ask her, and her dragon friend, to join us—eat dessert with us here?"

My mate nodded to me with a warm smile, before calling out, "Tana, borta met okkur!"

Soon, we were sitting on the grass nearby, eating not only with Tana and all our dragon companions, but with a whole circle of Roana's friends and well-wishers, both human and dragon, especially dragon patients she had helped, along with their grateful human companions. I was meeting them all for the first time, and learning much more, even through translation, about the woman I had loved, and was loving now. They were even apparently bringing her up to speed with what she had forgotten over the past year.

Before long, we began singing some songs in Old Norse around a fire. I was just holding Roana from behind and she was relaxing against me, while I in turn relaxed against Substance, who was curled up around me, with Rökkr lying wrapped around her.

I would glance to the side at times, watching Substance's and Rökkr's heads together beside me in the firelight with the red evening sky in the background. Substance still wore her leather strap of office around her neck, and it just blew me away that I was now bonded, even best buds, with one of the top dragons in town.

Substance must have somehow detected me thinking that however, as she just looked at me with one eye for a moment, before then lowering her head and actually gently just touching and balancing it on my right knee. I looked at her with almost a sense of disbelief as I nonetheless began tentatively stroking her head with my right hand. Substance kept that one left eye looking back right into my eyes.

The sense of deep blissfulness and contentment I was getting from her was surreal, almost overwhelming. I could even feel the dragon's throat resonate on my knee as she began gently murmuring.

"She says, 'I am grateful, Companion,'" Roana simply conveyed.

Even though Roana was sitting against me on the grass, I couldn't help but lean forward, stretching an arm across this dragon's head and trying to embrace it anyway, as Roana did as well. I even felt Rökkr stretch his head alongside my shoulder over his new mate's neck.

The singing stopped around us, but I didn't mind. It seemed that the whole village had gone silent as they witnessed this simple but deep moment among the four of us, almost trying to share in it.

"Substance . . ." I finally said. I could say no more.

The dragon just slowly swung her head closer against Roana and I, closing that left eye of hers. Even seemingly inscrutable dragon spiritual leaders apparently had needs. Substance's were finally being met . . . and so were mine.

After an almost timeless, eternal moment had passed, Substance finally raised her head, facing everyone else as they just watched us in silence, before she gently murmured to them.

"She's telling everyone, 'Thank you for honouring this moment,'" Roana quietly translated to me. "'For me, it has been a long time . . . a long time of giving. Finally, thanks to this man, I am receiving once more. That feels so good. I had forgotten what it felt like. Now, with him, with my mate, and with my new family, I can be the reflection of Spirit that all of you deserve from me. I knew the pain of loss. Now I know the power of joy, and love again. I will be so much more for you all now than I was before. Please share that joy with me and us now . . . play, sing.'"

As the simple music and singing resumed around us, I looked at Roana, as she looked at me.

"This is the magic of Berk," she quietly said, "and you're part of that now, even a cause of it here."

As Roana began singing with the others while still looking at me, I looked down for a second, feeling humbled.

But then I began to recognize something. I began to suddenly feel a part of what was going on around me.

"Wait," I said, interrupting the song that was being sung. "Drekin minn flýgur yfir dalnum. My dragon flies over the valley."

"Very good," Roana now praised, somewhat surprised.

"When you all sing the words, it's easier for me to recognize them from what I've read," I noted.

"Hann skilr okkr þegar vit syngjum ort," she explained to everyone else as they stopped once again and just watched us. "So," she said turning her head towards me again with a smile, "would you like us to sing you some more words? Maybe we'll speak them normally, too, so you can begin understanding them."

"Shoot," I said . . . to Roana's now puzzled look. "That means go ahead," I clarified.

"Ohh, right," she realized. "American slang. I should remember that from my college years . . . _Fiel-ayih_ _. ._ _._" she then sang, before speaking it, "Félagi, that's 'mate' . . . a very important word for you and I."

"Félagi," I repeated, smiling. "And you have a beautiful singing voice, minn félagi."

"Og þú hafa a fallegur söngur rödd, félagi minn. Say it all to me," she invited.

"What's 'I love you'?" I asked.

"I'll tell you that in a moment, once you've said what I've asked," she smiled.

"Og foo hafa a fallegur söngur root, fielayhi minn," I compliantly said with a smile as best I could.

"Ek ást þú," she replied as she reached that hand of hers behind my head again and gave me a deep, passionate kiss to the ooo's and ahh's of those around us.

"Ek ast foo, Roana. Ek ást þú," I affirmed before we kissed again. This time we were roundly applauded, even cheered. Roana and I just gripped each other tighter and kissed even harder, smiling as we did.

My lessons in Berker Norse had begun!

— — — — —

As the singing continued into the evening, with the dragons humming in their own unique ways, our campfire group came to seemingly encompass the entire village. Even Árvekni and Chief Roald joined in . . . on either side of my family. Suddenly, I found myself literally in the middle of the village's leadership, with everyone else continuing to look at us, fairly deferentially at that.

"You'd better get used to this," Roana gently smiled to me, somehow sensing my discomfort. "It comes with being companion to a Dragon Guardian for one—not to mention you, I, and us being who we are now."

As Roana was telling me this, I noticed Árvekni grunting towards Substance, while he occasionally glanced at me. Substance was occasionally grunting and nodding in reply, giving me a glance or two as well.

"What are they talking about?" I wondered aloud to Roana, as she continued to sit back against me.

"Well . . . uhh," she hesitated. She then started grunting in dragon as well, addressing both Árvekni and Substance in turn.

"Roana . . ." I prodded, as the three of them now grunted among each other. Even Chief Roald seemed to now be chiming in at times as well . . . all in Dragon however. I was getting the feeling that even though I was literally in the middle of the conversation, and even seemed to be the subject, that I was being deliberately shut out of it.

"Roana," I pressed again, looking right at her and trying to catch her attention, even though her face was just inches in front of me.

"Ek er áhrifaríkur hann, á minnstur í hluti," she then finally said to the others in a language I was beginning to recognize.

"What are you telling me?" I asked her directly, now able to roughly translate what she had just said.

"Lance," she said hesitantly, looking down as she shifted sideways now in my lap while I noticed that Chief Roald, Substance, Rökkr, and even Árvekni were all now looking at her and I, "bonding with a dragon here, especially a Dragon Guardian and elder . . . it comes with responsibilities."

"Roana," I said with real unease.

"They were discussing your readiness, and training," she admitted.

"Readiness and training for what?" I wondered.

"Lance, now that you have bonded with Substance, and she and you are both important to this village," she said, " . . . you are to become a Dragon Rider."

"Roana, I'm barely able to fly . . . with you!" I replied forcefully as I tried to get up on my feet, but finding myself resolutely pinned down between my mate and my dragon. "I'm hardly ready to be a Dragon Rider, or even think of myself as Dragon Rider material!" I added, surrendering and remaining seated on the grass between them for the moment.

I then realized that Rökkr was rapidly grunting next to me, I guessed translating what Roana and I were saying for Substance's benefit so Roana didn't have to.

"Lance . . ." Roana said with reluctance again.

"You knew this would happen, too, didn't you?" I asked sharply. "Getting me to leap before I can even look. You're getting _really_ good at that, Roana!"

Roana looked down as Substance then barked at me, looking at me squarely with both her eyes, before she began grunting to me in a firm manner.

"She says, 'Most all who bond with a dragon here become Dragon Riders,'" Roana now conveyed as both of us now looked at Substance. "'Companion, what your mate induced you to do . . . she did for me, and for you.'"

I briefly looked down as the dragon continued to grunt.

"She says, 'Blame me. I can take it,'" Roana continued to translate. "'Do not blame your mate, who simply loves and cares for us both, and is still recovering from a loss of memories.'"

"Guardian . . . Substance," I began cautioning. Substance now interrupted me, almost like Árvekni would.

"She says, 'We all learn to protect each other and ourselves here,'" Roana conveyed. "'Others tried to take you, did they not?'"

"Yes," I admitted, reluctantly nodding.

"'You need to know how to defend yourself against them,'" she continued for the dragon, "'and you need to know how to work with us as we protect you. You hold our future, Companion—and we will not give that, or you, up. Even I have agreed with that, so blame me. We leaders wanted you bonded with a dragon so we could begin protecting you, no matter what happens.'

"Lance," Roana now added for herself, "they expressed this concern, and decision to me, even this morning when we all talked on the porch. I couldn't dare tell you, the way we were then . . . but the decision had already been made."

"Made?" I said with amazement. "You mean everything this evening, Substance and all . . . it was a _set-up_?"

Substance interjected, grunting strongly.

"She says, 'I volunteered, Companion,'" my mate relayed for the dragon. "'I chose you. But we realized you would have a hard time accepting that. Roana just had the difficult job of convincing you to approach me, to choose me. But she volunteered for that as well, as she loves you, she loves me, and she loves our tribe. I set you up, as much as any of us did. It was decided, and it was done, for all of us. Do not take this out on her, she doesn't deserve it.'"

"Roana," I asked, " . . . can I really trust you then, ever?"

Roana now broke down in tears, unable to face me as she began to get up. I willingly removed my arms from her. Substance barked however, seeming to bid her to sit down in my lap again as the dragon now murmured more gently.

"Sh-She says," Roana sniffed, looking down, "'You don't understand how things work here, do you, Companion?'"

"What do you mean?" I asked, daring to look Substance in the eyes again.

Substance however moved to nudge Roana, seeming to give her strength and supportive love. As the dragon did this, she once again cast an eye my way, murmuring.

"She says, 'We are one,'" Roana struggled to convey. I was silently shocked that those words, the core of my mating realization and vow with Roana, were used. "'We trust each other here, otherwise all this—all of us—are lost. We trust, even when for whatever reason, the truth cannot be told at that moment. She has told you the truth, each time, as soon as she could . . . as soon as you could accept it.'"

That condemned me to an extent. They were right—I hadn't been the easiest person to deal with when new truths were revealed. "I feel betrayed . . . manipulated," I nonetheless said, looking down again.

Substance gently murmured, just inches from my face. "She says, 'You are loved, Companion,'" my mate relayed, "'so deeply loved and valued. Anyone you see here would give their life for you.'"

"They would?" I sniffed.

The dragon nodded once in reply, before grunting again.

"'We need you, we want you, that much. Last night, we were preparing to attack if necessary, to get you back,'" Roana translated for Substance.

I now glanced up at Árvekni as he gazed steadily at me, while Substance continued to murmur.

"There are other biologists," I noted. "You could even train your own on the outside."

"'But they're not you,'" Roana translated, seemingly not just for Substance anymore, but for everyone. "'They are not Hiccup's legacy.'"

"I am a man," I said firmly. "Not a reincarnation, not a saviour, not a legend."

"'You are a symbol of hope to us,'" I heard translated for my benefit, "'amid a time of worry, even a threat of decline.'"

I thought back to Blóm. I couldn't argue with what I was being told.

"'That you are Ýsa is nothing less than a miracle to us,'" Roana's translation continued.

"Not all Ýsas were so good," I sighed, remembering my great grandfather now.

"'Would you not like to do something to set that right?'" I was asked. "'Your very presence here is already the first step in that direction.'"

"I am me," I sighed with tears in my eyes. "I want to be me, not just a living legend, a prophesy, a miracle worker, or anything else."

"Lance," Roana said on her own, "we love you. One of us here loved you enough to die for you . . ."

"Roana," I realized with sadness.

"Don't let that sacrifice I made be in vain," she said as we finally looked at each other again.

I embraced Roana, coming to grips with it all now.

I then raised my head and turned back towards my dragon. "Do you want me, Substance . . . as a companion?" I asked directly, looking at her as I heard Rökkr translating my question. "Or are you just around to safeguard a legend and V.I.P. scientist, too?"

The dragon just moved to nudge me tightly with her eyes closed.

"She has been alone, Lance, for years now," Roana quietly noted, "and she has lost a beloved companion, just as I have said."

"You guys want me awful bad, don't you," I sniffed.

Roana just nodded with tears in her eyes.

"I am still scared of heights, and flying alone," I admitted though, embracing Substance with my head and one arm, while the other remained around Roana.

Substance now just moved to nudge me harder again with her snout, before she looked at me openly, grunting again.

"She says, 'You haven't known before the love and support you deserve, so that you could discover who you could really be,'" Roana conveyed.

"That's not entirely untrue," I admitted. "But Rökkr and Substance . . . that's real, right?" I then queried.

Rökkr now turned his head, grunting at me. "He says, 'You were what was missing,'" Roana translated, "' . . . for my companion, Roana, for my mate, Substance, and for me. That is the truth. Are we not what you have been missing as well?'"

"A real and close family, my kind of tribe and people, and someone to love, whose love I could trust to last?" I tallied up. "Yeah, it is. But just don't deceive or set me up anymore without asking me first, okay?"

"Even when we can't tell you," Roana pledged, "it will be the truth. I swear from this moment on. The attack on you and I yesterday has scared our whole community though. Even our Outside Berker network went on alert."

"That's how Árvekni and the riders knew to come out and find us along the coast last night," I realized.

"That would be how," Roana agreed, "even though I wasn't really there to remember it. But Substance, Roald, Árvekni and the rest of us have maybe been rushing to take precautions today. Any of us would protect you, but a dragon and rider together . . . they are the best protection for each other there is, and we just wanted you to have that, and have two dragons in our household. Even I've found myself being rushed into things and having to both advise them and conceal things so as not to upset you . . . and I'm still adjusting to the idea that a year has gone by here. But I and we love you, Lance. There is nothing truer than that."

"Alright," I accepted as I just hugged Roana in relief while our two Night Furies nudged us. The humans around us more quietly applauded this time while the dragons supportively murmured.

Árvekni now just turned and left.

"Well," I sighed, noticing him going, "the Great Guardian has departed . . . so obviously, the problem had been solved."

"You will be eased in gradually now," Roana assured me herself, "and that is the truth as well. You will not be forced into doing things you cannot. With Substance though, you could not have a better teacher, and I've broken in a Dragon Rider or two myself. But given what's already happened to you, and to me . . ."

" . . . I have to become a Dragon Rider," I finished.

Roana just nodded at me as she continued to sit sideways in my lap with her arms around my shoulders.

"This is enough for today though," my mate now soothed to me as she kissed my cheek. "Our dragons deserve their mating night, and you look like you could use a good massage after all this."

"I was planning to give you one," I sighed, " . . . as an apology as much as anything else."

"Let's apologise together," she invited with a kiss, a surprisingly deep and passionate one.

I just hugged her tightly for a moment afterward.

— — — — —

As we got up and began walking home, I noticed that the feast night was winding down around us as both people and dragons left for their homes as well. Rökkr and Substance were on either side of us as always now as Roana and I walked arm-in-arm.

I looked at Substance next to me for a moment. Even on a supposedly festive night like this, I noticed she was carefully watching our surroundings, as was Rökkr on the other side of us.

"I've got the top dragons, and people, around me now, don't I?" I realized out loud.

"As we've been telling you, you're important to us," Roana replied.

"I'm just surprised you all didn't have me bond with Árvekni," I quipped.

After Rökkr translated, Substance looked up at me and grunted.

"She says, 'It was considered,'" Roana conveyed, "'but we loved you too much to do that to you. Árvekni was willing though. Besides, I have wanted to bond with Rökkr for some time, but he wasn't asking me. Today, it all came together.'"

I almost laughed, but then looked to my Night Fury for silent confirmation. The dragon simply nodded. I laid a hand on her head again as we continued walking amid the torch-illuminated houses as darkness finally fell.

"Your language was coming along well this evening," my mate then noted, changing to a lighter subject.

"Thanks," I replied. "It was just one of the things I wanted to get started with here, before . . ." I said, my voice trailing off.

"Hey, we're riding the same dragon here," she assured, drawing me closer as we walked. "It's been just as much of a day for me."

"Is that the same as saying, 'We're in the same boat,' is on the outside?" I asked.

"Uh huh," she replied.

"I wanted a change," I noted, "but that change wanted me even more."

"Uh huh," she smiled again.

"I've loved when you've said, 'uh huh,'" I sighed.

"I'm still saying it," she smiled.

"Roana, you told me on our mating night that I could never escape you anymore," I shared with her. "And you know, I think you are keeping your promise."

"You keep helping me, alright?" she smiled as we arrived on our porch outside our front door.

"Promise," I said as I now kissed her deeply. "And I'm not mad at you for doing what you did today and this evening."

"I'd figure out a way to make you feel guilty if you still were," Roana quipped.

I just smiled.

"You ready to tell me what I wore for you on our mating night?" she asked as we now embraced.

"You are just gonna utterly devastate me all over again," I sighed. "But it's late, and I'm tired from all that's gone on today, aren't you?"

"You're saying I should go easy on you then?" she queried.

"Please," I requested.

"Alright, just for you," she assured as she ushered me inside. "But I thought you were wanting me to be aggressive in bed. I'm about ready for that now."

For some reason, Roana now seemed younger and more full of energy than she had before. But maybe doubting and being resistant was harder work than I thought, or than it needed to be, I concluded.

"It is mating night for our dragons though . . ." she then hinted as we began walking through the door.

"It was only a leather vest and a white dress," I decided to admit in surrender.

"Thank you," she said as Rökkr closed the door behind us all.

Something told me that we wouldn't be bothering with costumes however. Substance did hint that she wanted to be relieved of her leather strap for the night . . . but Rökkr was already unfastening it and laying it aside before Roana would even release me to help.

"Come on, let's give them some privacy," my mate suggested as she led me back to our screened-off bedding area. "After all, this is her first time . . . I think."

Overhearing us, Rökkr quickly grunted and nodded, while looking at her with a warm determination. Substance for her part, now only had eyes for him.

"Night, Substance," I smiled. "How old is she anyway?" I wondered, turning to my own mate.

"Older than any of us actually," Roana answered as we walked to our own bedding area behind the screen. "I think she's over forty, in our years. They still measure time by moons and seasons though. Rökkr I know is thirty-three years old though. Wait, what's the year here?"

"It's Tuesday, May Thirteenth, Nineteen Eighty," I replied. "I remember writing May Twelfth in my fake suicide note at the inn yesterday."

"Okay, he's thirty-four then, five years older than me," she corrected.

"Hmmm, he's the same age as me," I noted.

"I knew there was a reason I loved you," Roana smiled as she proceeded to just shed her vest now that we had arrived at our bedding area.

"But he's a fair bit younger than her," I remarked.

"Do you really notice any difference in age between them?" my mate countered as she slipped off her leather skirt.

"No," I cautiously replied.

"Neither do they," she answered with a quiet firmness.

"Think I'll brush my teeth," I decided, now looking around for anything resembling a washbasin, but then remembering, "Do you have a toothbrush? I kind of lost my luggage yesterday, permanently."

"We've kissed enough," my mate responded. "Just use mine for now. But there's no toothpaste here, Outsider. We just use baking soda for paste as we can't easily burn or dispose of the toothpaste tubes. No garbage can pile up on this island."

"So where do you keep the toothbrush and all, or wash up?" I wondered, now looking for anything that resembled toiletries as well as still looking for a washbasin.

"We haven't done all that before now?" she wondered, sidling up behind me and starting to unbutton my shirt.

"There hasn't really been an occasion to," I admitted.

"Wow," she then said almost pulling her hands away briefly. "We are definitely washing this shirt. I can't believe I was sitting back against this fish slime all evening."

"You were wearing a leather vest," I noted with a smile as she carefully resumed unbuttoning my shirt before tossing it aside . . . far aside. "Think the rest of me needs washing as well?" I subtly hinted.

We both heard deep murmurs coming from the other end of the house though.

"I don't think it's a good time for a bath out there right now," Roana decided. "Let's just brush your teeth—but maybe part of you needs a quick wipe. Go ahead and get into bed, I know where everything is."

I turned and saw her dash across the house towards the cooking area, clad only in her usual tank-top tunic that covered her down to her thighs. For some reason, part of me wanted to trust now that I would always be seeing a pleasant sight like this . . . that it wouldn't be taken from me again.

As I finished undressing and slipped into bed, Roana soon returned carrying a large bowl of steaming water in one arm, and a wooden tray with a toothbrush, washcloth, along with a bar of oatmeal soap, and a box of baking soda from the outside world.

"What is it?" she wondered as she caught me looking at her.

"You look simply so beautiful," I couldn't help admiring, sitting up in the floor bed. "I just don't ever want to lose it all again."

"Lance," she smiled, now clearly moved by my words as she knelt down, setting the bowl and tray to one side. "Let me just take care of you," she then invited.

I could only purse my lips and close my eyes in gratitude.

"Why don't you just keep those eyes closed for now," she then added as my ears detected the rustling of fabric.

Serenaded by the unforgettable sounds of two amorous dragons now living it up for the first time together, Roana just moved behind me, offering to be my pillow for the moment, bidding me with the gentle pull of a hand to just recline against her.

"What are you leaning against?" I asked, opening my eyes once more in curiosity.

"I am very comfortable," she assured. "Now just close your eyes again, and open your mouth."

"Open my mmmpppppphhh?" I tried to say as she now just began brushing my teeth for me. I now quietly chuckled and just surrendered, leaning back against her fully . . . and feeling no fabric between us. Roana just worked the brush fairly vigorously all around my teeth as she wrapped her free arm around my front.

I could get used to brushing my teeth like this, I decided.

"Rinse," she soon invited, holding a small wooden cup of water to my lips. "An empty bowl is on your right."

"No sinks, eh?" I wondered after spitting the rinse into the empty bowl.

"Could you get used to it?" she simply asked. "There's a hole in the floor right next to it you can dump it into if you really can't stand to see mouth rinse. But there are advantages to these arrangements. I'll just bet you've never had your teeth brushed in bed by a stunning blonde before, have you?"

"You got me there," I smiled with a very fresh mouth now as I inclined my head back to kiss her.

"Now, let me wash that fish slime off you," she suggested, reaching with her right hand as she deftly grabbed the washcloth, wetting it in the bowl of warm water, and then rubbing it on the bar of soap.

I found my entire front and even arms being gently washed, carefully rinsed, and even dried with a sheepskin while our lips remained locked in one incredibly passionate kiss.

The only thing that disturbed it all were two dragons now roaring very loudly . . . _inside_ the house.

"They're mated," I nonetheless smiled as our kiss was interrupted.

"Our turn," Roana said.

"What about you?" I offered. "Brushing your teeth and all?"

"Later . . ." she suggested.

I was not about to disagree with her this time.


	18. Chapter 18

"So . . . do you still miss me?" a voice said in my ear as a warm presence wrapped herself around me from behind in bed the next morning.

I just stretched and quietly turned myself around, welcoming her into my arms. Roana felt so good against me.

"Why do you say that?" I asked as we shared our first morning kiss . . . that both of us could now remember anyway.

"Because I know that I will have recovered me, who I want to be, when you don't miss me anymore," she soothed. "It's my goal, and your missing me is my measure towards it."

I could only look up at the rafters of what I was still getting used to as our house now.

"Lance?" she asked as I could feel her looking at me while she stretched herself across me, just as she had done that fateful morning of the day I had wound up losing the woman she had been. She now resettled herself directly on top of me though, looking me in the eyes.

"Okay, Lance," she invited. "Just talk to me straight. No lies either way, alright?"

I closed my eyes. "This is just how, and where, we woke up two days ago," I confessed. Roana took me completely into her arms, even wrapping herself around me. Her warm shoulder felt the same as it had on that morning, her entire body did.

"I'm not holding up my end of the bargain though," I disciplined myself.

"So, you're not perfect," she accepted, looking at me again, running her fingers through my brown hair. "Neither am I. Would you believe I'm pushy for one? Although I'm usually only that way when I'm working under cover on a mission."

She got me to laugh with that one . . . openly.

"Gotcha," she smiled as we just merged together, kissing deeply.

"Am I her yet?" she asked as we rolled over under the covers, still kissing passionately.

I pressed my nose against her neck and hair, inhaling deeply, tickling her with my breath on her neck and causing her to laugh as well, before I raised my head and looked her in the eyes.

"You're her," I gently said as we merged even closer together, kissing once more. "You are sooo her," I breathed as we just took each other, while I recognized and relished the same fiery spirit once more, the same Norse princess whom I had found myself utterly surrendering to just three days ago.

We both now heard familiar creaking on the floorboards across the house from our screened bed area, a creaking that caused us to interrupt our passions.

"Rökkr's gotta roar for his own mating this time," I smiled.

"Yep," my mate sighed, as we now just relaxed against each other awaiting this latest ceremonial roar from him.

Sure enough, we heard the door open, the dragon stepped outside, a good, long and loud roar came, and cheering and roaring from outside echoed back.

"Hearing that over three days now," I smiled, "I think I'm gonna miss it."

"How about I roar for you each morning then?" my mate playfully offered.

"Let's get started," I smiled, "with a roaring kiss."

Roana and I then just roared into each other's mouths. I never laughed so hard during a kiss in my life. We both did.

I then had that sense we were being watched however. I turned my head and looked behind Roana and I, and sure enough, there was Substance, looking at us.

"Anything I can do for you, Substance?" I offered, as Roana grunted a translation for her in my arms.

The dragon just murmured with a gentle smile on her face, as Rökkr's head soon poked around the edge of our screen alongside hers.

"She simply wishes to convey her thanks to you for bringing about the most wonderful night of her life," Roana conveyed. "And she wonders if all is well back here now."

"Things are pretty good," I smiled, looking back at my own mate underneath me in our quilts.

Substance now grunted again. "She's saying, 'We each have our duties though,'" Roana conveyed.

"Work day, eh?" I responded as I continued looking at Roana.

"Those do exist around here," she replied.

"Alright," I sighed, "but nothing to wake up with?"

Rökkr now briefly disappeared. We heard the brief sounds of flames, followed by the sounds of a bucket being dipped and filled, and he soon returned carrying that same bucket with a few wisps of steam coming out of it.

"Hot mead tea in the morning?" I said, as both Roana and I turned and sat up in our bed.

"It's morning coffee, pre-dinner cocktail, and a nightcap to the dragons," Roana said next to me.

Substance now briefly withdrew, quickly appearing again though with a wooden board sporting a loaf of bread.

"Guys," I sighed. "Breakfast in bed? It's your first morning together. We should be doing this for you with fish."

Rökkr now set down the bucket, disappearing again himself as we heard some rustling in the cooking area and the opening of a pantry door. He then soon returned with a second bucket, this time filled with fish for he and his mate to share as well. He even remembered to bring a couple of empty mugs for Roana and I to use with the tea . . . only they were poised on top of the fish. He then set it all down at the foot of our bedding as Roana leaned forward, reaching for the mugs, and dipping them in the tea before returning to sit up in bed beside me.

Rökkr then grunted. "He says, 'It is our first morning, all together,'" Roana translated as the two of us now sipped our tea, while the two dragons took turns taking sips out of the first bucket with tea in it.

"This is the life," I smiled, relaxing next to Roana for a moment. "This is just the life."

"To us," Roana toasted, looking at us all, "and to the wonderful family we are now."

Both dragons gently roared in agreement as I clinked Roana's mug beside me. Rökkr then passed his mate a first fish with his teeth as they both gently kissed.

"You are all one," I said in quiet amazement. "You all love the same." I was actually able to look at Rökkr now as a fellow husband to his mate, just as I was to mine.

"We are one," Roana gently corrected as she offered me a chunk of bread that had a light sprinkling of sugar on its crust.

I just reached an arm around her, drawing her to me as we then shared that chunk of bread between our mouths in almost the same way as the dragons did with that fish.

A passage of Hiccup's journal I had read now came to mind, from when Fury and Little Toothless had just joined their family on Dragon Island, "Ek hafti nýtt heiti fyrir himna um nóttina . . . fjölskyldu." "I had a new name for heaven that night . . . family."

I now felt exactly the same way. Me . . . I had a family now. After the contentious years of my previous marriage, and the shattered hopes, I now had something around me that I could not only rely on but that brought me an incredible inner joy as well. I just looked at my mate next to me, sitting up in bed, and our dragons as they paused from wolfing down their raw fish at our feet. All three of them could see what I was feeling. I let them.

I now couldn't say a thing. I didn't have to.

Roana put both her arms around me, hugging me tightly as I hugged her. Our dragons, they cautiously extended their heads across our bedding and Roana and I welcomed them into our shared embrace as well.

Heaven? That was an understatement now.

— — — — —

Finally, the four of us stirred from our blissful breakfast in bed.

"Thank you, buddy . . . thank you so much," I said as Rökkr offered us the now empty tea bucket to put our mugs in and then kindly returned our breakfast items to the cooking area, Substance and Roana then seemed to conduct something of a dialogue, in dragon again. Even though I was curious as to what the two of them were talking about, I had a problem. My mate noticed as I was now stuck, half-dressed, holding my leather vest, but wondering what to do for a shirt today.

"Wear this," Roana offered, passing me a garment.

"But that's one of your tank top tunics," I sighed, reluctant to take it.

"I saw guys wearing tank tops all the time on the outside in college," she replied. "They just had large numbers on them and were called basketball jerseys. With that leather vest you say I gave you, you'll be fine."

"Hardly doctor attire," I sighed as I took the dark blue tunic anyway.

"Outsider," Roana kidded.

"Truce on that, okay?" I replied as I put the blue tank top on with an almost resigned but pleasant smile.

"Now you really look like my mate," she smiled as I gave her something of a pained look. "Truce," she then quickly agreed as she finished putting her own leather vest on over her tunic, before leaning over to me for a shared kiss. "Substance just wants to know our schedule though," she then added as she reached back to rebraid her long, golden hair for the day.

"Allow me," I offered, now moving behind her as both of us knelt on our bedding.

"Lance," she replied, charmed. "Thank you . . . thank you so much."

"You're welcome," I said. She couldn't help but lean back against me now, drawing us into another kiss. "It's awful tough to braid your hair this way," I noted.

"I know," she breathed as we kissed some more. "But you can handle it."

I just proceeded to grab her tightly against me and kiss her fiercely, abandoning all thought of braiding. Substance allowed a moment or two of this before gently clearing her throat and murmuring.

"She says she has to go to a morning meeting of the elders, and would like you to go, too," my mate sighed, interrupting our kisses.

"You people aren't much for honeymoons around here, are you?" I remarked.

"We try and put a little of that into each day," she replied, "not just bunch it all up front, and then have things go downhill from there. I've got more for you here, later. Promise."

"Alright," I smiled as we both then sat up again. "But aside from this elder's meeting, what else are we doing?"

"Well," Roana answered while I quietly resumed braiding her hair, "Substance and I were just discussing that while you were getting dressed . . . or trying to," she then smiled, glancing at me.

I just leaned and gave her a quick kiss before I continued weaving her hair.

"I told her that we'd have to be doing dragon and vet care," my mate continued as well, "along with some work on your lab. Substance has both her daily meeting with the other two elders first, then school classes at midday after everyone's morning chores, and personal visits in the afternoon. But she wants to make time for some one-on-one sessions with you. I suggested late afternoons before we return home for dinner."

"What are the session topics?" I wondered.

Roana and Substance grunted towards each other for a moment. "Well," my mate then answered, "she first wants to school you further in Berker thinking as she works to understand you and your language better, and then it sounds like flying sessions before too long. It's looking like she already has a full curriculum worked up for you though."

"And I thought Rökkr was hard core," I sighed.

Rökkr grunted as he returned, looking between Substance and myself. "He's saying you're a softie, practically a newly-hatched dragon," my mate smiled.

"Just don't mash my food for me," I quipped right back to them both, before kissing Roana as we both now got up dressed and ready to go.

Our family dynamic was getting established. It felt good.

— — — — —

Sure enough, practically from the moment we stepped out the door, my day was packed. Plus I was torn in two directions.

"Go with Substance first, and then find me once she starts her morning meeting with the other elders," Roana encouraged as we all emerged out onto our porch. "She just wants to show everyone that you are bonded with her, and thinks you should begin to get less dependent on me for communication and everything else here."

"But she and I can't say a thing to each other," I sighed, hesitating to peel off with just Substance.

"Lesson one," Roana smiled as Substance now moved between us and nudged me off in a different direction.

So I accompanied Substance alone for the first time as we walked down along the village commons towards the sea cliffs. For some reason, I was noticing almost nothing but dragon-human pairs around me as we walked. Substance was once again wearing her thick, decorative leather strap of office around her neck. That made me feel even more self-conscious in a way, especially when other humans and dragons nodded towards us.

Substance gently murmured, looking up at me.

"I have no idea what you're saying," I sighed, glancing down at her eyes as we walked.

Substance then turned, murmuring at a passing villager. The villager stopped, looking at her strangely, but then looked at me, shrugging as he raised his right hand and then opening and closing his fingers and thumb repeatedly, as if it were a talking puppet.

I just pointed between myself and Substance, questioningly as I looked at him.

The man nodded.

"You just want me to talk to you?" I asked, now looking at Substance.

Amazingly, she now nodded at me, even though she couldn't possibly be understanding me at the moment. She then just nodded at the man as he continued on his way, beside his own Gronckle.

"Look," I sighed, kneeling down somewhat in front of Substance as they left, "this isn't really getting us anywhere. I'm just talking gibberish to you, and your grunts are unfathomable to me."

The dragon nodded again, gently murmuring.

"You're not understanding me," I said, " . . . you couldn't possibly be."

Substance just looked at me openly.

"We will find a way?" I guessed.

Substance just murmured again, now looking and gesturing off across the commons with her head.

"We keep going here, eh?" I now said, rising up again. The Night Fury nodded again as we both resumed walking. I glanced down at her as she looked up at me, seeming eminently pleased for some reason.

Substance paused us to converse with a couple of other people and dragons as we continued to walk through the village. Pastoral calls of a sort, I was guessing, especially as she seemed to murmur gently towards them, and nudge them at times.

Finally though, she and I approached Chief Roald and Árvekni, who were just sitting down on the grass at the edge of the village near the sea cliff. Now I thought I could go and find Roana . . . but Substance just looked at me and then gestured to the ground. I sighed as I now sat down as well, cross-legged.

"I don't really belong here . . . with the three of you," I noted, looking at her.

Sure enough though, Chief Roald produced his chalkboard again, writing something down before passing it and the chalk to me.

"How is dragon with you?" I read to myself out loud. Not having Rökkr to translate back for me, I just erased the chalkboard. "Fine," I said to myself as I wrote 'Finn' in Norse runes, turning it so Substance could see it as well while I passed it and the chalk back to the Chief across from me.

Substance shook her head though, then murmuring something to the Chief as he wrote on the board again before passing it back to me.

"Speak words in both Norse and English," I read aloud again from the runes. "Ah," I said, getting it. "Tala . . . ort . . . í bæti . . . norrænni og ensku," I repeated slowly as best I could, remembering my months of studies in Old Norse back home in America, before repeating, "Speak words in both Norse and English."

Substance grunted enthusiastically now, nodding her head as she looked at me.

"Þú ert at skilja mig núna," I smiled. "You are understanding me now."

Substance now nudged me hard, closing her eyes. I smiled as well, now seeing how much she enjoyed learning, and achieving breakthroughs. I could now see why Substance had wanted me apart from Roana this morning—how I was using Roana as a crutch, one that was preventing me from beginning to speak a language I could already easily read.

Chief Roald beckoned for the board again, quickly writing something before passing it back to me.

"Hvat heitir þú fyrir dreka þínum? What is your name for your dragon?" I read aloud again as Substance was paying close attention to every word I now spoke in both Norse and English.

"Ek hef nefnt Substance, Efni hennar. I have named her Substance, Efni," I clarified. My pronunciation was likely far from perfect, but the Norse just began rolling out of me all of a sudden.

"Árvekni skynjar hættu í kringum mig," the Chief then said directly to me this time. I could even just begin to make sense of his heavy accent now. It was almost like listening to a Norse version of what a Scottish brogue was in English.

"Árvekni senses danger around me. Árvekni skynjar hættu í kringum mig," I repeated back in Norse as well to confirm my understanding.

"Vit vertum at vera varkár á öllum vegum," Chief Roald said.

"We must be careful in all ways," I echoed, nodding my understanding.

"Ert þú tilbúinn til lest eins og Dreki Reitmatur?" he asked.

"Am I ready to train as a Dragon Rider?" I sighed, looking down briefly. I then glanced at Substance. She gently nodded as she gazed back at me.

_Leaping before I look,_ I sighed silently to myself. This time though, Roana wasn't here . . . just Substance with her probing look, causing me to know what the right answer was.

"Já. Yes," I replied, looking right back at both Roald and Árvekni now.

I had once been glad I had managed to avoid the American draft for the Vietnam War while in college, due to my Canadian citizenship, as well as avoiding service in the Canadian Armed Forces due to my studies abroad in America. But now, strangely, I was ready to become a Berk Dragon Rider.

Even without words, I could tell how pleased, even proud, Substance was of me.

— — — — —

The elders then dismissed me through Roald just telling me. Evidently, I had been the first topic on their agenda. As I left them to the rest of their meeting and walked alone back through the village now, I found myself beginning to get used to the tribal mindset and way of doing things here. On the outside, we questioned, even protested most every decisions political leaders made . . . at least in America. Here though, when the elders had made a decision, a clear request, or even dismissed you, it was simply accepted. I began to realize that here, villagers chose the best among themselves as elders, probably without any campaigning as they already knew them, and then allowed them to govern. With dragons and continued existence seeming to be the central concerns, the political issues seemed pretty simple here anyway.

I looked around me. Although things and village life were no longer quite as described in the journal, at least the first two-thirds I had read, it had all been working here for over nine hundred years.

I caught a redheaded young woman glancing at me as we walked past each other. I wondered if she was one of the other women who had vied to win me. She was attractive and nice enough as she and I each stole a second glance at each other . . . but she wasn't Roana, and she almost certainly did not speak English. I began to see, even sense, a wisdom around me—and I began to trust it. No one but Roana would have been able to patiently draw me here to live. Now the elders wanted me to be able to defend myself and help protect the village. It all made perfect sense.

Something large, green and yellow then landed on my left shoulder.

"Hi, Afganga," I said, greeting the Terror dragon, "and no, I don't have anything for you. Maybe try me again later in the day though, and I might try and remember to carry something for you."

For some reason, the dragon just remained perched on my shoulder as I walked. "You know where Roana is? Þú veist hvar Roana er?" I asked in Norse, wondering if it might understand me.

"Roana is right here," I heard to my surprise, glancing at the dragon for just an instant though, before I saw my mate off to my right side, close by, kneeling next to a sheep. "And your Norse is getting very good," she praised.

"Hví-Why is Afganga hanging onto me if he's just looking for scraps?" I asked, almost having to mentally remember to switch to English all of a sudden.

"That's because it's not Afganga," Roana replied without looking up, seeming to still be puzzling over the sheep. "It's Vinkona or 'Friend'. Afganga has more orange colouring on him. Vinkona catches her own food, but just likes riding along on people's shoulders at times."

"Halló Vinkona," I now said to the Terror in my best Norse.

"Could you help me with the sheep here?" Roana then sighed.

"Burt þú fara, off you go, Vinkona," I said, giving her forelegs a gentle nudge off my shoulder with my right hand as the small dragon then took to the air and flew away.

"You are really getting good with Norse," she praised. "Why weren't you using it with me more yesterday?"

"I'd been reading it in the journal and studying it in books back where I came from for months now," I replied. "I just didn't have any oral pronunciations of runes and words I'd been reading to go by. And your accents here are somewhat different than I had imagined or expected. But hearing both English and your Norse phrases together, as we did last night, and getting the basic vowels and consonants down, along with Substance challenging me this morning to read what Chief Roald was writing on the chalkboard in both English and my best Norse . . . it's just there now—although English is still far easier."

"Then English it is between us. Substance is wanting to learn that from you anyway," she smiled briefly.

"Where's Rökkr?" I wondered, looking around.

"He's off on fish runs for us," she replied.

"You don't go with him on those?" I asked.

"Why would I?" she responded. "Getting wet in cold seawater isn't my idea of a good time."

"Oh, sorry," I now remembered. "Rökkr doesn't need a rider every time he flies, does he?"

"Aside from injuries and maimings a few of our dragons suffered in combat during World War II," she answered, "and a few accidents at other times, our dragons haven't required tail or other rigs like Toothless and Fury did in the journal. But . . ." Roana then sighed.

"What is it?" I perceptively inquired.

"Aaarrrrgggghhhh!" she now groaned next to the sheep. "The shepherd can't remember what I had previously said was wrong with the sheep, and since the sheep is apparently somewhat better, but not completely recovered, I can't easily diagnose what the problem is. Serves me right for relying on my memory around here, instead of writing things down like I was taught to in college," she sighed.

"Well, you've been the only vet around," I encouraged as I now knelt down beside her, "and your perception and memory are very sharp."

"Except when I've been robbed of them," she sighed as she looked at me.

"What are you gonna do about it from here?" I asked as I looked at her.

"Thanks," she accepted, embracing me briefly from the side before we got back to work figuring out what was wrong with the sheep in front of us.

— — — — —

Employing analytical techniques and processes of elimination I had even taught as a visiting professor at times during breaks in my NASA work, Roana and I soon not only had the sheep diagnosed and on a further treatment regimen, but had treated a Nightmare, two Gronkles, helped a goat successfully give birth, and even fished out a chicken bone that had become lodged in Afganga's throat—and it was Afganga this time.

"Just stay away from chicken scraps. Bara vera í burtu frá matarleifar kjúklingur," I cautioned as the grateful little dragon nudged Roana and I before flying off out of our lab.

"Well, as we're here," Roana then suggested as we both washed our hands at the sink, "why don't we get to work on what you'll need in this lab to do your work?"

"We already discussed that three days ago . . . but we didn't write it down," I sheepishly admitted.

"I see I was already rubbing off on you, wasn't I?" she half smiled.

"You were," I quietly admitted, moving closer and giving her a brief kiss.

"But unlike me, you should be remembering what we discussed," she noted as I continued to loosely hold her from behind.

"I think I do, somewhat," I agreed, looking around again, trying to refresh my memory. "But what's that other door off the back here?" I asked, now looking at it. "I'd never noticed it before."

"That is Substance's domain," she answered as we both looked at a door that was right next to a large wooden storage cabinet, and looked almost like an extension of the cabinet, " . . . although Guardians of Memories have always needed human help in there. It's where our most precious things from the past are stored—in the driest, most stable setting we can provide. Our archives, you might say."

"You mean . . . ?" I began to realize.

"All the most important things from our past are there," Roana confirmed. "Especially from your family, including the original journal. Unfortunately, things aren't necessarily well-organized in there as space is limited, even though it has been enlarged some over time. This clinic was the original storage space, but it was moved in back even deeper into the hillside, and somewhat concealed to better protect our legacies during World War II, after our experience with the battle here."

"That I would like to see," I said.

"Well, you just happened to bond with the right dragon and elder," my mate assured, "so I'm sure Substance would be delighted to share it with you, maybe even recruit your help in there."

"Well let's go get her. Wait, she's teaching now though, right?" I then remembered.

"Let's grab some melon slices for lunch from our cold storage here," my mate suggested. "We'll ask her later. But you know . . . you should sit in on some of those classes. You might learn something."

"But those are for kids," I sighed.

"How about we enjoy lunch there?" Roana smiled anyway.

— — — — —

Soon I was trying to unobtrusively sit down at the back of a class gathered on a grassy bank up the valley a little from our village as Roana sat down next to me and offered me a melon slice.

"Utangartsmatur!" one human child enthusiastically exclaimed now looking at me, much to my chagrin.

"I knew this wasn't a good idea," I sighed to Roana as the entire class then turned and mobbed around Roana and I.

Substance just seemed to smile as I was greeted enthusiastically by a hoard of children and young dragons alike.

"Yes, nice to meet you, too. Já, gaman at hitta þig líka," I replied in both languages as I was touched, petted, even almost knocked over by the crush of young ones. Roana was just laughing next to me. "You did this on purpose," I said aside to her.

"Yep," she smiled, seemingly somehow able to eat her own melon slice unmolested.

Finally, Substance came to my rescue by barking. The class seemed to quickly calm down and sit on the grass again, but this time with Roana and I in the middle. A juvenile Nightmare seemed to want to claim a spot of honour, sitting itself down right next to me and pressing up against me with its bony wing and needle-sharp spines on its dark red back, while a young and fortunately small Gronckle proceeded to sit in front of me . . . on my feet.

Substance began grunting in dragon again.

"She's saying, 'Thank you for welcoming Lance,'" my mate conveyed. "'But he's not an outsider anymore. He is one of us now. More importantly, he is an Ýsa, a real Ýsa.'"

The entire class turned towards me and went "Ooooo . . ." much to my embarrassment.

"'He comes from Canada and America,'" Roana continued translating as Substance lectured. "'You know where those are?'"

To my surprise, a young Nadder raised its wing first, and then pointed with it down the valley beyond the sea cliffs. A dragon here knew geography . . . knew where I had come from. Once again, I was just stunned.

"She's saying, 'Very good,'" Roana continued to convey as Substance resumed grunting. "'But he is a scientist, even a teacher himself. So Lance, come here and tell us something . . . something important to you.'"

"Ohh no," I quickly said, both to Roana beside me, and shaking my head towards Substance as well.

"Go on, Lance," Roana encouraged, even pushing me up towards my feet.

"But I don't have kids," I cautioned. "I don't know how to work with or teach kids. I have nothing to say."

"Yes you do," Roana said as she pushed me up. "And yes you can. I'll even go with you to translate in Norse so you don't have to."

With Roana, I hesitantly stepped forward among the children, feeling almost the embarrassed nerd I had once been in school when I was their ages. They just watched me in rapt silence. Finally, we were in front of them all, next to Substance.

"Hello, everyone," I nervously began as Roana translated my words to Norse next to me, and Substance did the same in dragon on my other side, relying I presumed on Roana's Norse translation. "I wasn't expecting to come up here, or even be in your class today. But your teacher . . . she is my dragon companion now, and I've named her Substance in accordance with our ways here. After being here a few days . . . I don't know if there is much I can really teach or tell you. This village, and all of you, have been telling and teaching me a lot more."

I paused for a moment in silence, looking down, thinking.

"If there is one thing I could tell you today though," I resumed, "from what little I've experienced here so far, it might be this. I imagine that practically none of you have ever been to the outside yet, right?"

To my surprise, a couple hands went up . . . even one dragon wing, belonging to a young Night Fury.

"Well, I see a couple of you have been to the outside," I continued. "I have travelled myself though, both across Canada, and across America. I've seen parts of Europe, been to Japan, and more. I have seen things that are big, amazing, huge . . . also things that are very small. But you know what the best thing is that I have seen in the whole world, in my whole life, so far?"

I paused again, this time looking at the class, smiling.

"You," I said. "This village. I have never been so happy, or found so much love and peace, as I have right here."

Even adults and grown dragons were now gathering around the edges of the class.

"On the outside, people have to struggle to survive," I continued. "Sometimes or often alone, by themselves. I did. But here, you will never know that. Here, if you feel sad, someone around you will notice, and will help you feel better. Here, if you're hungry, someone will give you a fish, or help you go fishing. You will notice and help others, too. On the outside people sometimes leave you. Here, they almost never do. But my great grandfather, Asger, did leave this village. We all know he made a mistake, a very sad one, because he hurt Alltaf. I can't tell you how sorry I was when I found out about that. My grandparents and parents on the outside never told me about Berk, about all of you. But one of you here, Roana . . . with the help of the elders and others—you came and found me, you brought me here. I am so glad that happened."

Roana now took my hand as she stood next to me. I did her one better though, putting my left arm around her as I took her hand with my right arm in front of us.

"Over time," I offered, looking at the class again as Roana spoke in Norse right beside me, "you are welcome to ask me about the outside. I will tell you anything I know. But if you ask me where the best place is, where the happiest people and dragons are, I will tell you that it's right here . . . in Berk. And I can't tell you how happy I am to be here now."

The class, and the village around them, just cheered and roared. Roana and I now took each other into a passionate, loving kiss . . . right in front of the entire class.

"Thank you," I whispered in her ear.


	19. Chapter 19

For the first time as the cheering and roaring died down, I now felt truly accepted, even embraced in Berk. I could hardly believe it myself. The compliments from the adults, and the attention and questions from the children—the language I was hearing was almost suddenly beginning to make sense. The runic words I had been reading and understanding on pages for months now had sounds to them. I was both a new and great hope to these villagers, and a storied legacy of a treasured past that had returned. I now began to accept it. That was becoming my role here, my service to our community and tribe.

But in this village, even a newly embraced celebrity had to put in an honest day's labour. Rökkr's emergence amid the crowd was a hint of that, but his carrying two leather aprons in his mouth for Roana and I was a clear request. So, putting on one of the leather aprons, I then spent time working with my mate salting some fish from Rökkr's runs in barrels for near term storage, lugging others to our cold storage locker, and refilling Rökkr's fish pantry in the house. It was refreshing, honest work of a kind I could never remember having done before. As I put fish away in our cold locker though, I couldn't help thinking again of the historical treasures, the history in the raw, that lay behind that one side door nearby within the bunker.

But when Substance finally returned to our house from paying pastoral calls to the cave dragons, she didn't make it easy on me.

"Gætum vit sét . . . minni stat . . . skjalasafni?" I stammered out in Norse, before repeating, "Could we see the 'memory place', archives?" in English, careful to match even the words I was guessing for in Norse with their English equivalents for her benefit.

"She says 'Very good,'" Roana conveyed in our house as Substance grunted and nodded after again paying close attention to my English. "But you two go ahead," she then decided. "I'll keep making dinner here."

"But we still haven't made a normal dinner together yet," I sighed.

"Have to keep you looking forward to something around here," Roana smiled. "I think Substance wants to use this to further your bond and understanding with her though. Dinner will be ready when you two get back."

"Alright," I accepted as Substance was already making her way out the door and looking back at me to join her.

I walked beside my dragon companion across the commons again. It just struck me as weird but wonderful that only three days on now, I had a mate, a dragon companion, and was doing manual labour in an isolated village instead of microbial research in a high-tech lab, or even vacationing with a car as I had been.

Substance gently nudged me as we walked, looking up into my eyes.

"Ek var bara glatatur í hugsun. I was just lost in thought," I explained. "Svo mikit hefur breyst hjá mér á sítustu dögum. So much has changed for me in the last few days."

Substance pleasantly nodded, seeming to readily understand at least my Norse now. We were clearly communicating . . . in one direction between us anyway.

Soon, we were inside the clinic again, in front of that door.

Substance now gestured with her head and eyes, looking down at a certain portion of the collar around her neck. I saw a buttoned pocket on it now.

"Þú vilt at ek opna þetta? You want me to open this?" I asked.

The dragon nodded as I now opened the leather pouch and pulled a large key on a leather fob from it.

"Dreki og mannlegur verta at opinn this saman? Dragon and human have to open this together?" I wondered, seeing no way for Substance to remove the key from its pouch by herself.

Substance nodded and grunted looking at me as she then gestured at the keyhole in the door with her head.

It made sense to me . . . a shared legacy. A dragon kept the key, but a human used it and opened the lock. I felt an incredible rush of excitement and anticipation as I turned that key in the lock and slowly opened the heavy wooden door. Having read adventure stories in my youth about lost treasures, even Howard Carter's discovery of King Tut's Tomb in Egypt, part of me had always wanted to be an archaeologist if I hadn't settled on biology. Now, I was about to see things that historians and curators, at least elsewhere in Norway, would love to be seeing themselves.

I reached beside the door as we entered the dark room and felt a switch. Fortunately, this place was wired as well. I turned on the single light in the space . . . and my jaw dropped. It was filled with shelves and stacks of leather and cloth-bound volumes, as well as wooden and cardboard boxes, and so much more.

In the middle of it all though was one piece of furniture. I instantly knew what it was, even though I had never seen it before. "My God," I said as I moved towards it, "Hiccup's drafting table? Semja Hiksti á bort?"

Subtance nodded, seemingly with a tear in her eye as she gently smiled.

It was all real. Things that I had read about in the journal were actually here . . . in this space!

"Má ek snerta þat? May I touch it?" I then asked with my left hand poised over the drafting table. Substance gave a single nod as she watched me. I practically cried as my fingers now caressed the same surface that my ancestor had touched so many times throughout his life. I felt, even saw in my mind, his sketching and writing on this very table. I hung my head, humbled as I now laid both my hands on this precious piece of furniture. I now wanted to sketch and write on this surface as well. It was almost as if the table had been waiting for me . . . for an Ýsa to touch it again. This wasn't just village history—it was my history, and now felt a part of my very being.

Then I looked up, and I saw some very special artefacts that were carefully hung on wooden pegs along one wall. I teared up all over again as I moved around the drafting table towards them.

Reaching them, I carefully traced my fingers along them with deep reverence.

"Toothless' and Fury's tack and tail rigs," I sniffed as I moved close and walked beside them. The tailfins of each rig were carefully left in their open positions, with Toothless' rig displayed above Fury's on the wall. They were in remarkable condition, their colours and logos still just as described in the journal. Having read so much about them in the journal, I felt as if I was seeing the belongings of old friends now, while so wishing those friends were still here.

Then I saw another saddle, carefully hung on the wall off by itself. But it was scraped and scuffed, even torn in places. I didn't need to ask why.

I walked over to it amid stacks of boxes and volumes, touching this precious object as well, almost feeling the pain that had been around it. "Alltaf's," I simply said.

The legacy of our tribe . . . it was all here, right in this space.

I then felt a pair of hands and arms encircle me from behind, as a pair of lips gently kissed my neck.

"I felt I couldn't miss this," a voice then gently whispered in my ear.

I turned to embrace Roana tightly. "Ohh wow . . ." was all I could say.

I felt Substance now nudging against us as well, even though I could hardly imagine how she got past the furniture, shelving and boxes to reach us.

"Do you appreciate part of why we wanted you here?" my mate asked.

I could only nod in reply. Finally though, I was able to speak again. "Has anyone ever gone through this?" I asked.

"Aside from making copies of the journal periodically, not really," Roana answered as she looked around with me. "Generations have pretty much just kept putting more stuff in here, and Guardians of Memories have just memorized what is valued among the dragons. But I can remember Substance just coming into the clinic while I was working at times, and just looking at the door that led here. When I offered though, she never wanted me to open it. So this is the first time I have seen all this in here as well."

I then looked at my dragon companion, kneeling down in front of her.

"Substance, vil ek at hjálpa þér met allt þetta—I want to help you with all this," I said to her.

She just closed her eyes and nudged me tightly.

A dragon had now found her kindred spirit, just as much as I had. And me, I had found even more of my family.

— — — — —

I soon settled into my new daily routine though, first helping Roana with her work in caring for the dragons and animals in the mornings. While she knew far more about both dragon and other animal anatomy and health than I did; we were soon working as equals . . . with her not just explaining things, but seeking my opinion, even during surgeries. I had never worked with any colleague like this in my life, but with Roana, it wasn't work. It was another wonderful thing she and I did together as mates.

In the afternoons, she would help me set up my lab as I began my studies of remedying inbreeding issues among the dragons, with solving the brittle egg problem among the Night Furies being job one. We had to cope with a serious lack of equipment, test chemicals and tools at first that I had taken for granted in my work. But as Roana and I would send requests to our outside network by Dragon Rider, equipment, supplies and even chemicals soon started showing up, and I was able to start making progress.

Feeling that I almost had to assemble a body of knowledge here from scratch, as soon as I had even the minimal resources I needed, I first had Roana take small fluid samples and tissue biopsies from a random sampling of dragons to familiarize myself with their physiologies and begin establishing something of a baseline among them, examining and testing each sample as she would bring them to me. Having expended no small effort to bring and keep me here, the village was now expecting results, even if their pressure was no more than gentle questions. Fortunately, Roana as a fellow scientist and Substance as a scholar were my best defenders, with both of them counselling patience . . . especially to Árvekni, who just gave me probing stares practically every time he even looked at me. I was sooo glad I wasn't bonded with him.

"Come home," Roana invited one evening, wrapping herself around me from behind as I sat hunched on a stool, looking into a microscope.

"I need to finish these cell counts, and then check on the iron and calcium test series I have going just over there on the other table," I replied as the fingers of my left hand instinctively worked a counter, tallying up the different types of dragon blood cells my eyes were seeing.

I felt lips and even a tongue begin to work on and seduce the back of my neck. My left fingers worked even faster as my eyes more rapidly scanned across the glass slide as well. I was fearing my not breaking off my work and turning around would cause Roana to lose interest, but she just kept going, even rubbing her hands across my chest and abdomen through the fabric of my clothing.

"I love you," I said as I reluctantly changed slides in the microscope without taking my eyes off of what I was doing.

"Keep going," my mate simply encouraged as her lips and hands continued their own work on me.

After breaking from the microscope to record my cell tallies in my notes, I then spun around on my stool, standing to take Roana into a passionate kiss.

"I just have a bit more to do," I sighed regretfully, "while the specimens and test results are fresh."

"I know," she gently breathed to me. "I have been in labs before. Keep going. I'm proud of you . . . so proud, and I'm here to support you now. You want me to log the iron and calcium series? I know how to distinguish colours in test tubes."

"Hmmm . . . that or continuing to have you do your all-important work on my neck and everywhere else," I mused as we continued holding each other. "It's tough balancing such priorities."

"I want to show you a good time at home," she invited. "Our dragons shouldn't be the only ones enjoying themselves. That, and your dinner getting cold, are why I came over."

"Thank you for being patient with me," I gently said to her.

"Hey, it's for the dragons," she smiled. "How could I possibly argue with that?"

I just held my mate tightly, so in love with her.

— — — — —

Now feeling on a roll, the very next morning I was ready to conduct a more closely focused study among just the Night Fury population.

"Just go," Roana encouraged with a smile, sending me off to the lab and gladly excusing me from assisting her in her vet work, as Substance put off my further Berk orientation and training as well.

So I proceeded to work several marathon days in a row. As Roana brought me meals, as well as refreshing massages, rubs and kisses whenever I wanted, the progress built and built.

"I think it may be something to do with a decreased ability to process calcium," I soon began to theorize after another round of tests I performed on some blood samples and intestinal tissue biopsies from among the female Night Fury population. "The relevant Calbindin protein counts are well below what they should be, right across the board for their genus. It might be affecting their bone densities, too, even though they're flying reptiles. We should check on that."

Roana just hugged me excitedly.

"You've been waiting for this breakthrough, haven't you?" I smiled.

"I've been waiting for you," was all she would say as she kissed me.

To quickly try and prevent anymore tragedies as had happened with Blóm, with Roana's concurrence, I pre-emptively prescribed a calcium supplement regimen for the Night Fury population, as they were the most critical at the moment, while also beginning work on devising a drug therapy to stimulate the production of more Calbindin proteins in their systems to better absorb calcium from what they were eating. I was grateful that I had been involved, at least on the periphery, in studies others at NASA had been doing into the bone loss that astronauts had been experiencing in space. While osteoporosis or spaceflight osteopenia in humans and brittle eggshells among Night Furies might seem to be vastly different things, to me they had similar root causes . . . a lack of calcium or calcium absorption.

Surprisingly, a written request from me for papers from those NASA studies was promptly answered within days, with a Dragon Rider delivering several diplomatic pouches of those reports from the U.S. Embassy in Oslo, no less, that had been conveyed through our outside network . . . along with a welcomed letter for Roana.

"Thank goodness my uncle is alright," she sighed as soon as she even began opening the envelope with a handwriting and return address very familiar to her. "I've been worried about him ever since you told me what happened, even though our Outsider network has assured us that he was fine."

"I imagine he was just as concerned about you, and us," I replied as I gave her a squeeze with one arm and a kiss on her cheek, before I turned attention to the pouches that had also come with the letter.

"So why was NASA trying so hard to take me, even pursuing and shooting at us, if they're now so readily sending these reports to me?" I wondered as I opened the pouches as Roana read her letter.

"Roald and Árvekni told me as they gave these pouches to me that the Americans have claimed to our representatives in Oslo that they were not trying to take you back," she replied, interrupting her reading.

"_What?_" I asked with surprise, now looking at her.

"The Americans also denied that the dart you provided us is theirs, and took it for analysis with our permission," she continued.

"That does not feel good," I said.

"Well, they could be covering up to us," she noted.

"What about the American helicopter crew?" I asked. "Weren't they captured by the Norwegians?"

"Roald said that in talking with official but classified contacts at the Norwegian Defence Ministry in Oslo, our representatives reported those Americans were forced to land at that base where you said we were," my mate replied. "But upon landing, the Americans apologised for the misunderstanding, saying it was a classified training exercise. Apparently their credentials appeared to be in order, and while they were escorted by air back to Oslo, the Norwegians who accompanied them in other aircraft saw them being met by a car when their helicopter landed at an airport, and then they disappeared, with the American Embassy, even NASA, later claiming to have no knowledge of them or their activities."

Listening to us, with her comprehension of English apparently growing by the day, Substance now chimed in, grunting. "She says, 'Now do you see why we want you to become a Dragon Rider?'" Roana conveyed.

"Yeah, I do," I admitted.

"Lance," my mate encouraged, "now that you've made a good first step in devising some treatments for the Night Furies, maybe it's time to catch up on other priorities."

"So much to do," I said, "but only one me." I then glanced at the open pouches and the reports they contained. "I should review these reports now though, since I've asked for them."

"No, Lance," Roana gently countered, laying a hand on my arm as she prevented me from picking up a pouch. "You've done enough, at least for today."

"Let me read these reports," I maintained, feeling somewhat tense now. "Then I can wrap up my own notes, maybe fine tune the treatment regimens for the Night Furies, which will allow me to turn around and pick up my Berker orientation, and then begin my Dragon Rider training, so you don't get shot by darts anymore, and I don't get kidnapped by whomever seems to want me!"

Roana now just stormed off to the cooking area, but Substance barked, at both of us. My mate stopped, lowering her head.

"I'm sorry," she said, turning to me.

"You?" I queried. "I was the one who snapped here. I'm the one who's sorry . . . but there's just so much going on, even in supposedly peaceful Berk. So much to do and so little time, despite these long summer days."

Substance now grunted at both of us. "She wants you and I to go with her," Roana conveyed.

"Where and why?" I asked.

"Stop questioning everything, and just do it, Outsider!" my mate replied with exasperation.

Looking at Substance caused me to stop myself from just retorting in kind. "Alright," I peacefully agreed.

"I'm sorry, again," Roana apologised in kind as Substance now led us both out of the house and up the valley beyond the village, while Rökkr stayed behind at home. To my surprise, Roana even reached for and took my hand as we walked.

"You're better than I am here," I reluctantly admired.

"You're about to become better, too," my mate replied.

— — — — —

Soon, with just grunts and gestures, Substance had Roana and I sit down on some hillside grass, with Substance laying herself down next to Roana.

"She says, 'Look at your mate,'" Substance then just started telling me through Roana. "'Look into her eyes.'"

While I was still feeling somewhat stung by my argument with Roana, I did as Substance asked. I looked into my mate's eyes. "'Accept fully that she is part of you. Her joy is yours. Her pain is yours,'" Roana said as she continued to instinctively translate Substance's complex grunts and murmurs. The two of them seemed almost to be acting as one now. The blend of dragon and human intelligences, even spirits, seemed a powerful, even compelling combination.

"'She is at once your most precious self, but also this sacred other,'" Substance continued to tell me through Roana. "'Now, just give up, surrender the idea that you will _ever_ intentionally hurt her, through words or anything else.'"

"When did I do that today? When did I hurt you?" I asked interrupting. "I want to know, honestly."

"My hopes for a nice evening with you were hurt," Roana replied, "when you chose those reports over me. I saw how thick those pouches were, I knew how long you would be spending reading those things, and I just blew inside."

"I'm sorry," I replied. "I can see that now."

Substance grunted though, seeming to interrupt us both. "She wants to continue," my mate conveyed.

"Very well," I half smiled. "Go on."

Roana briefly grunted to Substance before the dragon looked at me and resumed her lesson. "She says, 'Give up the idea, the possibility of bringing hurt or pain to her,'" she picked up for Substance. "'You could no longer hurt her with words or acts than you could stab yourself with a knife. You are wholly devoted to her good, which is your good as well. You protect her from the pressures you feel and face, because you love her, because that is what loving another is . . . sharing your burdens with the one you love, without passing them on to her. Know that nothing can harm you within the haven of your love, unless you let it. Do not just think or believe it . . . know it. Close your eyes now, go within yourself, and know it.'"

"Má ek spyrja spurningar? Can I ask a question?" I requested as I closed my eyes.

"She says you can just ask in English now," Roana replied. "She understands it enough."

"Already?" I asked.

"A learner is who she is," my mate replied, "what she excels at." Substance then grunted, looking at me. "But in answer to your query," Roana continued, "she asks, 'Do you wish just an answer . . . a comfort to your hesitation? Or do you want a solution . . . a way to what you truly want? Choose what you desire, and know it to be true. Know it to be yours. Allow nothing else to get in the way . . . not feelings, not even seeming reality. Then, you will feel and have what you desire, no matter what occurs around you.'"

"Can I still be human about this?" I followed up.

"'Of course you can,'" Substance replied through Roana. "'I just thought you wanted to be more dragon about this, and in your life. I am just showing you how to do that, as your guide.'

"Lance, this is what bonding, really bonding, with a dragon companion is," Roana advised on her own now. "It is a hard, clear discipline. Not everyone can handle it. Those who cannot either become Outside Berkers like my parents did, or work indirectly with the dragons, not maintaining a close companionship with a dragon . . . which is also what my parents did before they left. I loved the dragons though, even from childhood. I wanted to bond closely with them. I had a number of good friendships with them growing up, but no close, mature companion bond until Rökkr. But even Hiccup and Astrid did not reach this level during their lifetimes, because their communication and understanding with the dragons was limited. Once the dragons were able to really communicate and share their thoughts with subsequent generations of Berkers however, this shared discipline and practice of companionship and guidance between dragons and humans emerged. With Substance being who she is though, you just get the most intense guidance."

"No kidding," I agreed.

"But it is why we know the peace and harmony we do here," she continued. "They have given those things to us . . . and this is how. It is your next step as a Dragon Berker, and Substance's human companion."

"You just decide, remember, and do," I said.

"That is it," Roana confirmed. "I admit I was getting pretty frustrated when you wanted to go right back to work yet another evening here, while I was hoping we could finally enjoy a nice dinner and evening together, having accomplished all that we have in recent days. But when Substance barked, that snapped me right back. I remembered that we belonged to each other, that I love you, and to just calm down and focus on you rather than my disappointment or irritation."

I just fell back against the grass now and sighed. Roana lay down beside me, taking me into her arms and simply holding me.

Substance grunted. "She says, 'Don't look up at the sky. Look at your mate. Let go your tension, hold onto her.'"

"The simplest marital advice in the world," I said, finally turning my eyes to Roana as she caressed the left side of my head with her free hand.

"It's why we don't divorce here. We have dragons," my mate said as she moved to passionately kiss me.

I rolled her over in the grass beside Substance, almost wanting to take Roana right then and there. "I've been working so hard," I whispered between kisses. "I'm almost burned out here."

"Let's go home and feed each other dinner slowly, in bed," the woman I loved again suggested. "Nothing in this world is more important than that right now."

"Keep me focused," I asked, "on what's important."

"We're doing that every day, my wonderful Outsider," Roana softly replied, her sweet, warm breath washing over my face now. "And every night, too . . . especially tonight."

"Substance . . ." I said with gratitude, looking up at her now.

She just grunted warmly at me. "She just asks, 'Take me home, to my mate,'" Roana translated.

"You Berkers know what you're doing," I said, shaking my head with a smile as we all now got up. "You really know."

"Now you do, too," Roana smiled. Substance now grunted on my other side though, gesturing with her head. "She says to climb on. She's faster."

Despite knowing that Substance wasn't wearing a saddle, I simply invited my mate to hop up onto Substance's neck as we walked with a sweep of my hand.

"Nuh uh," Roana gently declined however. "She's your dragon. You ride in front."

I just smiled as I bound up onto Substance now as Roana quickly jumped up behind me, all while my dragon continued to walk. Substance then simply spread her wings and we were off, taking an easy soar back down the valley and into the village. Although it was a simple, short flight, Substance put a little spin on it. She arced up into the air near our house and then banked hard right into a tight spiral downwards to the ground. I felt Roana instinctively holding me tight from behind to reassure me. Before I knew it though, we landed right in front of our porch facing the door.

"Whoa," I said, being just a little dizzy.

"I think you will find she likes to be creative in her flying," my mate cautioned.

"Hmmm . . ." I said with a little reservation. But then I looked at my dragon, at her eyes that were hoping she hadn't gone too far. I couldn't help softening towards her. "Why haven't we done this before?" I asked her allowing a subtle smile on my face, both to reassure her, and realizing this had been our first flight.

Substance grunted, looking back at me. "She says, 'You've been busy,'" Roana conveyed.

"I'm sorry, Substance," I said regretfully.

"'Tomorrow,'" I heard translated for my benefit as Roana and then I dismounted. "'Now though, we enjoy.'"

Sure enough, Rökkr had sensed us coming. Our front door was now open and he was waiting for us in the doorway.

"I am just sorry," I sighed as we stepped up on the front porch, "all 'round here."

"Show me how sorry you are, Outsider," Roana now invited as she led me this time towards the dragons' bedding area.

"Uh, Roana, why here?" I asked.

"Toothless, Fury, Hiccup, Astrid," she tallied up. "Why can't we enjoy an evening of food, closeness and good times as they did? To us, to me at least, dragons make a marriage."

"They won't step on us, will they, while . . . ?" I hinted while glancing towards our dragons.

"You wonderful Outsider," Roana sighed as she practically tackled me down onto the bedding.

The four of us wound up enjoying an evening of part roasted regurgitated fish but mostly fresh mutton with all the trimmings, along with hot mead tea . . . heavy on the mead this time, all curled up close together, before we paired off apart just a little on the bedding with each couple enjoying a more private and intimate dessert.

"The journal's right," I later sighed, sated in every way imaginable. "Sleeping with your mate beside your dragon is heaven."

"See?" Roana smiled, nestled close against me under our quilt, almost pinning me against Substance as Rökkr resettled himself against her on her other side after stretching and blowing out the last candle for the night. Substance then stretched her wings out in both directions, drawing them around the rest of us and giving us all a tight goodnight hug.

Ohh this was good now. And I wasn't stepped on once . . . except by Roana.

— — — — —

Part of me knew I was being softened up for a test the next day. But even then I was surprised.

It started right as I was woken up. Roana surprised me with a very nice breakfast. Rökkr must have told her I liked French Toast, and there was still plenty of syrup left from when the previous Roana was wooing me to live here just a few weeks ago now.

"I'm sorry," Roana apologised as I first looked at that French Toast and syrup quietly for a moment as they sat on a tray on my lap in the bedding while the dragons looked on.

"It's alright," I slowly assured. "I'll probably be hitting these little memory land mines occasionally for a while yet. This breakfast is beautiful, Roana . . . just like you are." We kissed warmly before sharing the breakfast together, feeding each other forkfuls of delicious, buttery and syrupy French Toast.

No sooner had we finished breakfast though than both she and the dragons hustled me into a bath.

"A bath? In the morning?" I wondered.

"Just a quick one," Roana replied, remaining clothed in her indoor tunic as she now took a scrub brush to me along with the oatmeal soap. "We have to scrub Substance, too."

"Why?" I reflexively asked before remembering yesterday. "Never mind," I then quickly accepted as I just allowed myself to be scrubbed.

Substance then grunted as she sat watching me in the tub.

"You're right, Substance," Roana sighed. "Lance," she then said, pausing, "you're the only one who doesn't know why we're doing this. We can do it one of two ways, or not at all if you want."

"Do what?" I now asked with growing hesitation.

"Your real first flight with Substance," she answered. "We have a Dragon Rider induction ceremony that is very important to our tribe, but if you want, you can try flying on Substance alone first without or before the ceremony. But either way, Substance wants you to fly alone with her today."

"You want me . . . to fly on Substance alone?" I repeated. "Already?"

"Lance, this is very important to us," Roana said, just kneeling beside the tub and looking at me straight now. "Since Toothless and Hiccup first flew together, there has been a bond between dragon and rider . . . a bond that has become the foundation of who we are as a tribe, why we are here, and how we have survived and endured over time. Just as with a mating, or a marriage, we celebrate that bond at its very beginning . . . at the moment it really starts."

"Both you and Substance have been asked to become Dragon and Rider together," she continued, "but you can still decline with no dishonour. Once joined in this way though, you pledge to defend and protect both each other, and our tribe, no matter the personal cost. And, since Alltaf's time, Dragon and Rider have also promised not to walk away from each other . . . essentially til death do you part."

I now glanced at Substance. She was also looking calmly but directly at me.

"When dragon and human first came together," Roana continued, "their bond was forged not through words, but through acts. And there is no plainer declaration that a dragon and rider are bound together than when a rider places a saddle on a dragon's neck, the dragon accepts it, and the two then take to the skies together for the first time. Among our people, this ceremony is done without a single word—it is that sacred to us, which is why I'm telling you all this now. It doesn't have to be today, but Substance is ready to take this step, this commitment with you, if you are."

"I had hoped to have a whole bunch of training flights first," I sighed, looking down.

"You will, lots of training flights," my mate assured. "But unlike with aircraft on the outside, or the way Hiccup or Astrid had to with their maimed dragons, you don't need to learn how to fly a dragon. They already do that themselves. You simply need to learn how to work with Substance, and you and she will discover that together. You will have a language problem with your dragon that the rest of us don't, but a Dragon and Rider don't really depend on words or grunts anyway. They develop a language all their own—of touches, even thoughts, as they fly."

"You want to do this, Substance?" I asked, looking at her.

My dragon simply nodded, briefly closing her eyes.

"Then let's do it the right way," I said.

"Alright Lance!" Roana cheered, reaching across the wooden tub's rim to embrace me enthusiastically as Substance and Rökkr gave out brief celebratory roars as well.

"Gods have mercy," I sighed. "I can't believe I agreed to this. But it's why you're both saying today, isn't it? You two knew I wouldn't have slept a wink last night had you told me this in advance, didn't you?"

"We know you, Lance," Roana smiled next to Substance.

"Let's do this thing," I accepted, ready to climb out of the tub now.

"Not quite so fast," Roana cautioned. "Substance gets scrubbed to a shine for the occasion as well. But first, let's finish scrubbing you."

Soon, I was having my first experience at washing a dragon. I could now see why Berkers didn't caulk the floorboards in their houses. Dragons were just washed and scrubbed wherever they were . . . so long as it wasn't on the bedding. Substance was blissfully enjoying every last minute of it though.

With both Substance and I well scrubbed and clean, and with me even shaved again by Roana and her large knife, I was now dressed in my best new Berker attire of a dark green tunic, dark grey pants with brown boots, and even a brown summer flying cloak.

"The cloak goes on top of the harness, which you will be receiving during the ceremony," Roana informed me as she donned her own Dragon Rider's harness, which had a thicker, decorated, almost sash-like strap diagonally across the left shoulder that even carried a ceremonial dagger down near waist level.

"That's thicker than the average Dragon Rider harness I've seen," I noticed. "Is it for ceremonial occasions?"

"Yes," she said. "But it also denotes that I'm of command rank among Dragon Riders. I'm not the only one though."

"I figured you would be," I smiled.

Rökkr then opened the front door ahead of us, and gave a brief roar. People and dragons began moving down the commons through the village en masse towards the sea cliffs. I silently wondered if everyone else but me had been expecting this, too.

Roana then joined Rökkr ahead of Substance and I as we all processed through the doorway. The two of them then turned on the grassy commons, leading us amid other villagers now watching us towards the ceremonial area near the sea cliffs where Árvekni, Chief Roald, and a fair number of Dragon Riders and their dragons were silently assembling in a semi-circle behind the two elders.

I looked at Substance as we now walked down the grassy commons. The dragon looked back at me with one eye in what I can only describe as deep affection. It almost began to seem as if the dragon and I were indeed getting married.

Chief Roald then held up a hand, bidding me to stop as Substance stopped beside me as well. He then looked to Roana as she stood with Rökkr off to one side. She then accepted a saddle from a craftsman near her, before she wordlessly turned and passed it to me.

I looked at it for a second . . . at the detail that went into its leatherwork, the stitching, the interweaving of leather strips across the seat of the saddle. Having now seen Toothless' saddle for myself, I marvelled at how the design here had basically remained unchanged for almost a thousand years.

I then turned to look at Substance, beginning to appreciate what this meant to her. She was gazing at me through one eye with all the pride of a mentor, yet also the expectation of a bride. I didn't know why dragons seemed to place such value on being ridden by humans . . . but I wasn't going to question it now. I was going to just trust it for a change.

I then gently placed the saddle on her neck, knowing fully that I was also saying 'I do' to Substance for life, even symbolically taking another step in healing Alltaf's pain and rift. I then turned to fasten its girth and straps around Substance's neck, fortunately already having had at least a little experience in working with Rökkr and his saddle.

Roana smiled in praise as she then held my Dragon Rider's harness, waiting as I unfastened my cloak, before handing the harness to me as she took my cloak for a moment.

I slipped into the harness, fastening it around myself. Once again, I was conscious of every single dragon and human in Berk watching me as I put on the cloak once more, then hoisting myself into the saddle for the first time, and hooking my harness up to a safety strap in front of me this time, rather than behind. To my surprise, I detected a couple camera flashes. But then I suppose this was an historic event for Berk, worthy of being recorded on film . . . even if they had to send out to have the pictures developed.

The moment had now come. Substance gazed back at me with one eye, waiting for me to crouch down as I had seen Roana and other riders do before their dragons took off. That would be my signal to her that I was ready. There seemed to be absolute silence across the village—just the distant cry of seagulls, and the sounds of surf beyond the cliff.

If it wasn't going to be now, it never would be.

I just deliberately crouched down, my hands locked around the saddle bars in front of me and feeling like an Olympic diver about to launch off the highest diving platform there was. Substance then surged us both into the sky. The ground, the entire planet, suddenly seemed to fall away below me. At least Substance was with me. I just looked ahead now, focusing on her head and ears in front of me for a moment.

Substance then began to bank and turn over our island.

"Don't bank . . . Ekki snúa," I said, basically petrified, even though my feet were securely in the stirrups, my legs were tightly gripping the sides of Substance's neck, my harness was securely attached to the front of the saddle, and my hands were definitely not letting go of those saddle bars.

I half expected her to dismiss or even condemn me as a coward in the air now. But if a dragon could have lovingly held a scared, even terrified, human's hand in flight, with understanding and even deep compassion . . . Substance was holding mine as we flew together. She wanted me to fly, with her. I felt her immediately level out and then turn far more gently, as we flew out over the sea and above other islands. I began to appreciate that in fact we didn't need speech between each other. And I was discovering that Substance was helping me to not only transcend my fears, but even myself . . . conveying her compassion and support for me with gentle turns, graceful arcs, and calm, reassuring flight.

I could only bend down and touch my forehead against the back of her head in gratitude and humility for what she was showing me. Substance just raised one of her ears to caress the side of my head and face as we flew on together.

_I am your dragon, _I felt her wordlessly convey to me as her wings beat steadily to keep us aloft. _You are my human, and my rider._ _I love you._

At last I was touching the mystery, the essence that had bonded the dragons and people of Berk together for a thousand years. Now I wasn't just a Berker or even a Dragon Berker . . . I was a Dragon Rider of Berk. They were right about this and the way they did it. You are a Dragon Rider, right from the first instant of flight with your dragon.

Roana and Rökkr now joined Substance and I in the air.

I was crying with a smile on my face now, forever changed. "Ohh I wish I could hug you," I said across the air to her.

"We are embracing," she assured as Substance and Rökkr briefly touched their wingtips together.

"Do it, Substance," I now encouraged, facing forward again. "Fly."

Substance now banked around, taking me into a gentle dive as Rökkr and Roana followed . . . along with a whole lot of other Dragons and Riders now, soaring, even zooming down towards the surface of the ocean before Substance pulled us up and powered us thousands of feet high into the sky. I felt the joy, even love, just emanating from my dragon now. She was complete again, for the first time since she had lost her past rider. I still didn't know how that had happened, and I loved her enough not to ask. My hands now relaxed their grip on the saddle bars though, as I began stroking Substance's neck with my left hand, just sharing the moment with her.

_Wow,_ I now thought as we soared among the sun and clouds . . . just pure wow.

Eventually, we returned over our island and valley, gently descending into it. As we then landed in front of our house again, for the first time my gaze was not on Roana, but on Substance as I dismounted from her. I felt Roana and Rökkr come up beside me as I couldn't stop looking at Substance, while Substance kept looking at me as well.

"Now, you know what I do with Rökkr, Dreki Reitmatur," she praised.

"How do you balance the two loves?" I finally turned and asked my mate.

Roana gently smiled and nodded at me. "Just the way they do," she replied as she ushered me, and our dragon family, off to join other Dragons and Riders as the village enjoyed a midday celebratory feast on the commons, this time for Substance and I. It was something accorded every new Dragon and Rider which included a hearty round of Mead Tea, with dragon and rider pairs drinking together out of the same cauldron in turn. This it turned out, was our sole task for the day. I wasn't even permitted to do anything else. And after all the mead that had been put in that tea, neither Substance nor I really felt like it anyway!

But I, mild mannered science nerd me . . . I was now a Viking! A real, spirited Berk Viking—bellowing songs in Old Norse with the best of them, right alongside Roana! And it was incredible, even as I later stumbled home along with my mate, while our dragons propped us up on either side . . . which was another reason I learned why dragons walk with us on the outside. They just never seemed to get as drunk as we humans did.

As we finished celebrating, and amid the fuzzyiness from too much mead, I was fearing that my heart would really be divided between my love for Roana and my love for Substance now. But somehow, I felt my heart just growing, as my awareness and appreciation of love seemed to be growing as well.

I knew a new serenity on the ground and in my life now, because I had found it in the air . . . with my dragon.


	20. Chapter 20

Of course, just flying with a dragon was only the beginning.

Before I knew it, I was being put through drills with Substance, with Roana as my trainer. To both Substance and Roana, all this was old hat. But to me it was still a challenge, as I learned how to stay with my dragon through rolls and loops, flying through clumps of trees in simulated pursuit of trespassing outsiders, and learning how to reach down and grab objects while in flight—first out in the clear valley, and later in the woods. I even was taught to grab and rescue people in the water when a dragon for whatever reason couldn't. I missed a few times at first, even dropping the target person back into the water . . . which of course was Roana. I eventually succeeded though.

I also learned how to balance on Substance out of the saddle in flight, as well as fasten and unfasten saddle straps and even make repairs to our saddle and straps, all in the air. Needless to say, I was fast losing my fear of flying, knowing that Substance was committed to keeping me safe, as much or even more than I was. This was no more clearly demonstrated to me than when we had to separate and rejoin during a vertical free-fall, as well as the first time I was called upon to just leap off Substance—without anything resembling a parachute.

"Do you trust your dragon?" Roana simply posed in the air near me seated on Rökkr, while I was on Substance.

Even I knew what the answer had to be as Substance just silently brushed my left hand with her ear.

I guess the remaining bulk of my old, fearful self perhaps died the moment I got up out of the saddle, crouching as I planted one foot on the saddle and the other foot on my dragon's back, looking behind and off to the left, and then pushing myself with my legs hard, leaping up and away so as not to injure my dragon's wing or tail in the air. I looked down, seeming to embrace death itself as I began to fall alone with thousands of feet to go below me.

I barely had time to get used to the idea and sensations of falling through the air by myself though, before a pair of black forelegs scooped me up, and I was once again within the familiar companionship of Substance. My previous training now kicked in as I began to clamber up her legs and back into the saddle as Substance flapped her wings to level off and climb again.

"This calls for a celebration," Roana noted as she now drew next to me again on Rökkr.

"No," I replied, feeling strangely somewhere between shaken and empty however. "I'd rather just . . ." I said as my voice dropped off. I didn't know what I wanted.

"It's okay, Lance," my mate now soothed near me in the air. "Let's go home. You've accomplished all you've needed to today."

Our dragons just banked together back over our island's mountains and down towards our valley again, as I looked behind me, swearing I had left a part of myself back there now, in the open sky.

I was given a quiet dinner, along with just peace and rest that night amid the understanding companionship of Roana and our dragons.

"When it changes," Roana said gently as she sat astride my back in her nightdress, giving me a deep massage on our floor bedding next to Substance and Rökkr after dinner, "a butterfly initially can't believe that it's not still a caterpillar. But somehow, its wings spread and it realizes and accepts what it has become."

"Substance tell you that?" I quietly wondered.

"Nope," she assured as she now lay herself down on top of my back, kissing my ear. "It's just me, loving you, this time."

"I can be so difficult, can't I?" I smiled with a tear in my eye as I rolled over underneath Roana, taking her into my arms.

"It's one thing I love about you," she said with such wonderful, open acceptance as she now extended her arms around me as well.

I felt my spirit freely falling this time, as I fell even more deeply in love with my mate, and everything I was surrounded by.

The power of choice . . . to trust, even to fall. It was just as Roana had been telling me since the day I met her. I was changing. I had changed. Now, I could never look at a butterfly again without appreciating that I had been through just what they had.

Although I never entirely shed it, I had gone from Hyse to Ýsa. I was that butterfly now . . . a Dragon Rider of Berk.

— — — — —

Before long, my mate and I, and our dragons, were rostered together among other Dragon Riders for periodic patrol duties—a vital task and honour that every Dragon Rider was expected to undertake as soon as they were able to. Our family made our first apprehension of a trespassing pair of kayakers within a week. They had landed at the one small beach there was on our island, and as many had done before them, they began climbing the rocks in an attempt to summit the mountains that hid us from view. Having been watched for sometime by our scouts, concealed in long-established observation posts, Roana and I and our dragons were dispatched from one post to intercept them as they climbed the mountainside.

Our dragons already knew what to do, but Roana gestured with hand signals anyway, indicating which climber Substance and I were to grab as other Dragon Riders silently descended to the beach beneath us to collect their boats and gear. The idea was for all Dragon Riders in a team to be in position to almost simultaneously grab all tresspassers in a party before any one of them could start running away and trying to hide.

Launching into a dive along the side of the mountain, Substance and I took aim at our assigned climber, as Rökkr and Roana aimed for theirs ahead of us. At the very last second, both our dragons banked, hugging the mountain slope as first one climber, and then the other were picked off the rocks and up into the air before they could even scream.

"It's alright," I assured the panicked woman climber Substance had grabbed with one paw beneath and behind me. As she screamed and yelled, the climber seemed to reach vainly for my boot in the stirrup, but Substance wouldn't let her get that close to me as she just stretched the leg holding the woman straighter underneath herself. Dragons had a responsibility to protect their riders in these situations.

"Y-You speak English?" the climber then said with surprise in a French accent.

"Yes, you'll be fine," I assured. "You've just been intercepted in a forbidden reserve. You will be set down in a minute in our village, okay?" I wasn't supposed to tell captives what would happen next until after they got there. All Dragon Riders were instructed to speak basically this same message, even just in Old Norse, in casual, soothing tones to our captives as we flew with them. It helped to minimize the amount of struggling our dragons had to deal with in flight as they held onto interceptees. The woman now indeed seemed to relax in Substance's claws, even starting to enjoy the ride and views somewhat as we crested over the mountains and gently descended into the valley and village below.

Roana's pride and admiration of me was beyond words as we arrived in the village with our first apprehensions, who were detained out of the way by other villagers once the dragons set them down on the ground, as we then landed ourselves. I just stroked Substance in both relief and praise at a job well done.

"You want to do the whole thing?" my mate invited.

I smiled as I now removed one of several of my own syringes from my safety harness, along with the alcohol wipe and liquid bandage from a pouch in my harness as well.

"It is alright," I assured the female climber I had captured with Substance as I approached her while she was being restrained by two woman villagers. "You just cannot remember what you've seen here. We will drug you and you will wake up on the outside not remembering any of this. You're perfectly safe though."

"Z-Zis really exists?" she asked nervously as I prepared her bared arm with the wipe.

"Yes it does," I replied. "And for the dragons we protect here, it has to remain an absolute secret, alright?"

Strangely, the woman now calmly stretched out her arm for me to inject.

"I am a loveur of all animals," she said with her accent. "Please continue protecting zem."

I briefly smiled. "Thank you," I said as I injected her, "we will."

"Mon Dieu . . ." the woman said as the drugs swiftly took effect.

Part of me almost wished I hadn't had to inject her. I felt we could use the support of people like her on the outside. But then there would have to be all the security and orientation issues, along with a great change of life for her and her partner.

"You know, Roana," I said to my mate as I applied the liquid bandage to the now unconscious woman, "there ought to be a way we could offer tresspassers a chance to at least become Outside Berkers . . . supporters of ours, before we inject them. Once I had told her what we were doing here, and why, she willingly offered me her arm, and asked that we continue protecting the dragons."

"We do that occasionally," Roana replied. "But there is a difference between someone who admires what we do, and someone who is actually willing to do what it takes to help us do it. Do you think she might make a good Outside Berker?"

"What was her partner like?" I asked.

"He was first terrified," my mate replied, "and then pleading with me not to hurt his wife, to just take him."

"I don't know," I sighed now. "She might make a decent Outside Berker, but he might not."

"We have to be careful, and selective," she said, "with whom we allow to join us, in whatever way. You were just a special case . . . both a part of us we had lost, and a scientist we badly wanted. Since these two haven't been vetted by our Outside Guardians though, it's perhaps best we return them to their lives out there."

"Yeah," I sighed, "maybe you're right."

Substance now murmured at me. "She says, 'Your heart is in the right place,'" Roana conveyed, "'but these are not the right people. As a Guardian, I will let you know when I sense someone might be right to join us.'"

"Just like Rökkr did with me," I smiled at her.

Substance just nodded with a confirming smile in her eyes.

We then proceeded to load the trespassing couple back onto our dragons' backs in nets, and along with Dragon Riders on a Nadder and Nightmare, we soon took them and their kayak to the outside lifeboat station after sunset, taking advantage of the brief summer darkness.

Just another day's work in Berk. It was all seeming downright normal to me now.

— — — — —

Soon, impressed with the rapid progress I had been making with Substance in the skies, Roana simply asked me another night as we landed back home after a more uneventful patrol, "Would you like to go further?"

"Should I ask why, or what that means?" I smiled.

"Just higher levels of training, including combat," she said.

"You think I can do that?" I queried.

"I wouldn't be asking you if I didn't think you could," she forthrightly replied.

With Substance gently looking back at me, once again I leaped before I looked, as I undertook full flight and combat training with my dragon. Roana, of course, was still my trainer. Thanks to Substance's wordless support, my confidence in the air quickly grew even more, and my dragon and I became adept, even renown, for our quick aerial manoeuvres. I lost any last fears of heights or falling. While Substance seemed to understand my every word in English . . . we mostly developed a silent way of communicating in flight, as most other Dragons and Riders did, through looks and with me making hand and leg presses on her neck. She would grunt and murmur in Night Fury to me at times, and I would somehow get her gist.

As the summer wore on, the Night Furies seemed to be responding well to the calcium supplements. An egg was even safely laid by a Night Fury. I was widely congratulated by others in the village for that, even though I felt I didn't have that much to do with it. I still had to devise a drug regimen to boost their protein counts though. That would take longer.

The village mating feast at Old Berk that Roana and I had been promised was continuing to be postponed however over the remaining mystery as to why we had been attacked, and just who had attacked us. Neither Chief Roald nor Árvekni wanted Roana or I to leave the village, even to see her uncle. And apparently the United States, even my native Canada, according to official but classified communiqués we received, were apparently content to have me remain safe, and isolated, in New Berk.

"This even confirms there was never any 'Code Blue' call-up for me, and that while my confidentiality agreement remains in force, I am no longer considered employed by either NASA or the United States Government, although I am welcome to reapply, and use my accumulated seniority," I said reading one official letter that had been delivered to me one evening as Roana and I were making dinner.

"That makes the whole incident seem suspect," Roana noted as we worked together in the cooking area.

"How?" I wondered, wanting to get her take on things, even though I had had to fill her in with all the details over recent weeks.

"From what you've shared with me, they were after you," she said, "but they didn't expect me or Rökkr, yet they knew about us. That would place them at likely a very high level in either NATO or Soviet military or intelligence services. To our knowledge, even the East Germans and most of the Warsaw Pact don't know about us here. You said that one agent knew about our protected territory and its approximate location . . ."

"You seem to know an awful lot about your treaty and Berk foreign relations," I noted, turning to her.

"I've been asked to translate between the elders and outsiders a few times, due to my English skills," she replied as she finished chopping vegetables. "It's nothing really."

"Really?" I asked, feeling my own suspicions here, and remembering the detailed argument her previous self had had with the two agents.

Roana sighed, looked down, and then turned to me. "I promised I wouldn't lie to you," she now said, "so it is more than that, but I cannot tell you as things are right now. Would you accept that from me?"

"Yes," I assured as we now loosely held each other in our arms.

"Thank you," she said with a kiss.

"I promised to trust you," I simply said to her as we embraced tightly and rocked a little together.

It felt good being that butterfly now.

— — — — —

Another day, another Dragon Rider patrol. Once again, Roana and I, along with a couple of others, were being dispatched from an observation post to intercept two more kayakers that had landed on our island and were climbing up the mountainside from that small beach.

"You know," I said to Roana as we were climbing aboard our dragons next to the mountaintop observation post, "we really should eliminate that beach . . . just remove it. That seems to be the source of most of our trespassing problems around here."

"What capabilities do we have besides hand shovels?" she asked." And how would a construction project be explained to the outside in what's supposed to be a strict, even quarantined wilderness preserve? We wish kayaks had never been invented, or introduced in Europe. But they're a fact of life, and now so is this."

"Let's go," I sighed as our dragons now took us into the air.

Soon, we were flying amid some low cloud cover as we planned our interception. This would be trickier, as the two climbers were right together on the mountain face, not one above the other as was usually the case.

Roana now looked at me, gesturing first at herself, then pointing at the climbers and finally holding up two fingers. Substance and I both nodded. We would be approaching the climbers from where we were on their left side. Roana and Rökkr would go in first, picking up the second or climber on the right, with Substance and I following and then picking up the first. Glancing down at the beach, we saw only one white and green two-person kayak and no one else down there, so the other Dragon Riders could take their time in descending down to the beach and picking up the craft.

Roana now held up her left fist in the air, our readiness signal. I also put up my left fist as the other two riders in our team put up theirs. She then gestured forward with a sweep of her hand, and we were all off . . . Roana and I towards the hikers, and the other two Dragon Riders towards the beach. Among Dragon Rider teams, Night Furies and their riders were invariably assigned to pick up trespassers, as they could approach both swiftly and by stealth, and their shorter and blunter talons were less likely to inflict wounds on the people we were picking up than either Nadders, or certainly Nightmares with their long, sharp, sickle-like claws.

Once again, I followed Roana and Rökkr as we soared alongside the mountain, almost hugging its contours. Then oddly, the climbers just seemed to stop on an open section of slope, even spreading apart a little. The pick-up was now easier. I didn't have time to ponder that though as Roana and Rökkr smoothly banked against the mountainside, picking up their climber as Substance and I swooped in to pick up the first, before we all turned, spiralling upwards in the air towards the top of the mountain.

The climber I was carrying seemed remarkably unafraid, not uttering a sound.

"It's alright," I said anyway, using my standard spiel, "you have just entered a forbidden reserve. We will be setting you down shortly."

"American?" he wondered in surprise with a heavy accent, looking up at me.

His accent surprised me, too. "Russian?" I asked him in reply without really looking at him while I was flying at the moment.

"We are defectors . . . friend Boris and I," he responded, still cool as a cucumber.

"What do you do here in the West?" I asked, deciding to engage him in light conversation, to my own amazement.

"We scientists," he said. "Biologists."

"Really?" I remarked, now quickly glancing at him but noticing he was wearing sunglasses. "I'm a biologist, too."

"What your name?" he asked.

The ingrained 'national security' side of me would normally have been hesitant to reveal my name to any Russian. I had even been supplied with several alternate names by NASA which I could give if the occasion needed that would check out, while also triggering investigations of anyone checking them out in the process. But since I was about to drug this trespasser anyway, I figured what the heck.

"I'm Doctor Lance Hyse," I said.

"_The_ Lance Hyse? From NASA?" he replied as he reached under his vest with his free arm.

I now tensed up a little, fearing a weapon. Substance seemed to glance back as well, eyeing our captive with suspicion.

"Just itch," he said, seeming to notice my expression and seeking to reassure me. "But you and your work are famous, even in Russia," he then admired. "Have heard about you."

The way he said that made me glad I was about to drug him upon landing.

"Really," I now responded with less enthusiasm and more caution.

"Yes," he replied as we crested the mountains and now began our descent into the valley. "Your papers on inbreeding—required reading among agricultural planners, even at space bureau. That why we valuable defectors here. Boris and I know much. You here in Norway officially, on work?"

"No," I said, now wanting to end this conversation and wishing I'd given him one of my alternate names. "What are you doing here?" I asked however.

"We on vacation in Norway," he replied. I had fully expected that answer from him. "Great scenery, yes?" he went on as we thankfully now set him down in the village.

Substance now gave some final flaps of her wings as she set herself and I down upon the grassy commons. I quickly dismounted her this time, while still remembering to briefly pat her in thanks and appreciation.

"Halda aftur af honum. Halda aftur af þeim bátum," I then said coolly in Norse, looking at the other villagers, but gesturing with my eyes towards both our captives.

"Lance, what is it?" Roana now asked as she looked at me after dismounting, as additional villagers now moved to restrain and hold our two interceptees.

Without saying anything, I just proceeded to walk up to the man I had been talking with in the air and removed his sunglasses. To my shock, he was one of the men who had confronted Roana and I in my cabin back at the Drager Vertshus, claiming to be a NASA Security agent.

For an instant, I felt the icy grip of fear seize not only my stomach, but my entire being. Then my basic NASA intelligence training kicked in. I also remembered where I was, and even who I was now. But I needed to confer.

Without betraying any outward emotion, or even glancing at the other climber, "My apologies," I said to him. "I thought you were someone else. Excuse me, I need to go get some alcohol wipes, along with the drugs we will be using," I covered, even though a couple of syringes were visible on my harness.

I then spun around, briefly touching Roana, subtly motioning for her to follow me, and even motioning with my head for Substance to join us, as I literally began jogging around the side of a house, appearing to get what I said I was.

As soon as we were a little distance away and out of sight of the intruders, "Roana, Substance," I said calmly and quietly to them, "those are the men who tried to grab me back at the inn."

"But you said the men were American," Roana reminded me. "My interceptee is Russian."

"Rökkr," I then said as he joined us as well. "Return via a different way and tell me if those are the two men who confronted us at the inn," I requested.

Rökkr nodded, and then went around the far side of the house to eye the men carefully, before returning to us again.

"He's saying, 'Yes, those are the men,'" Roana confirmed to my paradoxical relief as he quietly nodded and murmured. "Wait," she now said, "does that mean . . . ?"

"They're likely Soviet agents," I said. "Definitely not American, and they are after me."

"So why aren't they presenting themselves as American, maintaining their cover?" she wondered.

"Because then I would recognize them for sure," I replied. "They probably expect that I'll recognize them now. But they've likely come to confirm that I'm here, probably with a device of some kind that will record they've found me, despite the drugs."

Substance now barked, calling the other two elders to join us as well. Once Árvekni and Chief Roald arrived alongside us, the three of them started rapidly grunting quietly among them in Dragon.

Árvekni finally grunted at Roana and I. "He's saying, 'Drug them, and search them for any cameras or recording devices,'" Roana relayed, translating his instructions as she looked at him. "'Then take them to the Lifeboat Station and call Oslo to have these men picked up by Norwegian intelligence. We cannot keep them here. Do not let them know you are onto them. The Norwegians and our Outside Guardians must find out what their plans are. And you, Lance, are to be assigned Dragon Rider guards day and night now, including Substance.'"

"Já, Verndari. Yes, Guardian," I accepted as a Dragon Rider as Roana answered the same in Norse with me. I couldn't think of a better plan at the moment anyway.

"'Go,'" Roana now conveyed from Árvekni as we broke and emerged from behind the house again.

"It's been nice talking with you, friend," I now said, putting on a relaxed demeanour as Roana and I returned to our captives.

"Yevgeny," he interjected, correcting me.

"Yevgeny," I accepted. "But it's time to return you and your comrade, Boris, to the outside. We just have to drug you. You'll sleep well and won't remember a thing about this when you wake up."

"Of course, Comrade Doctor Lance," he accepted, putting up absolutely no resistance when one of the villagers holding him now stretched out the man's arm. His calm reply and willing cooperation further unnerved me.

I proceeded to take out what I needed from my harness. Yevgeny just calmly watched me as I sterilized the injection point on his arm with a wipe and then injected him with a syringe without another word being said between us. He collapsed in the grip of two other Dragon Riders as I quickly swabbed the liquid bandage on his arm with the bottletop applicator, and then, before the bandage was even dry, I began searching him. There was nothing out of the ordinary as my hands probed through his pockets, under the vest he was wearing, even down his pantlegs. I went through his wallet, pressed and rumpled his clothing in case there were any devices sewn into them—all to no avail. I searched his companion with the same result.

Finally, I went over to the two men's kayak. I poured through their belongings, opened the craft's storage hatches, even poked my head inside the kayak as I felt around it with a hand, as Roana helped me as well.

Again nothing.

"It's alright," Roana assured as I pulled back from the kayak and rested on my knees.

"Are you trying to reassure yourself as much as me?" I wondered.

"We've found nothing on them, so there can't be anything to worry about," she replied. "We've handled Russians before, probably even Russian spies. As I've probably told you, they know we're here anyway from their satellites, as well as us helping the Allies during World War II. They will not be able to take away any knowledge here though that they can't already gain with their satellites."

"Something just doesn't feel right," I replied.

"It's probably your Top Secret clearance talking," she encouraged. "How often do you meet Russians?"

"Very rarely, and only under very controlled circumstances on the outside normally," I replied.

"Well, we have the best controls and protection anyone could ask for here," she encouraged. "We have dragons, and you're a Dragon Rider. We're on guard against invasion from the outside, and everyone who needs to already knows that."

I looked at her with a bit of residual scepticism.

"Let's step up your training some more though," she invited. "So guys like this really won't bother you."

My sceptical look at her continued, albeit with a slight smile as well now.

"Come on," Roana suggested, "let's get these two off to the lifeboat station."

"Alright," I accepted, laying my concerns aside for the moment.

— — — — —

Soon, our Dragon Rider team was flying the two men and their kayak to the lifeboat station amid rain and low clouds that concealed us well during our brief journey. Once we arrived at the modern but unassuming station perched at the edge of a dense forest atop a boat ramp, we passed our concern to the lifeboaters there. Roana even talked on what was apparently a secure phone to contacts in Oslo.

"We are instructed to give these men a second dose of drugs," she said to me as she hung up the phone in the station Livbåtfører or Coxswain's office. "Norwegian intelligence will be sending a military helicopter to pick them up and fly them to Oslo for further questioning in the guise of a hospital setting. I've also been instructed to recommend to our elders that we increase Dragon Rider patrols, based largely on your presence here, and your impressions that I conveyed. It seems you have admirers in Oslo as well, Lance."

Substance murmured and nodded next to me.

"Well, we already have her agreement," Roana conveyed, glancing at her.

"Hopefully I'm not paranoid," I sighed.

"Just cautious, like a dragon," she smiled, kissing me. "Let's go home."

— — — — —

Soon, we were home again, passing two Dragons and Riders who were already guarding the front door of our house as we entered.

"Halló," I casually said to them in passing as we went through the door.

The man and woman and the two Nadders standing either side of them nodded politely, but never took their eyes off the rest of the village landscape, even skies, in front of our house. They were on duty, and their stoicism rivalled that of the famed guards of Buckingham Palace in London.

It left me kind of hoping I would never draw guard duty now as a Dragon Rider.

But no sooner were we inside than Roana and Rökkr were turning to go right back out again.

"Rökkr and I have to go meet with Árvekni and some of the other Dragon Riders," she said to me, "to brief them on what I was told on the phone at the rescue station. Substance has to come as well, but you cannot, okay?"

I looked with some suspicion at her, and then at Substance, but Substance gave me that look, like, _Do you trust your mate or not?_

"Okay," I simply smiled. "Dinner will be ready for you three when you come back. "While I know what the dragons will be wanting, what would you like?"

"Surprise me," she decided. "And thank you, Lance. I appreciate your trust here."

"It's what we do in Berk," I smiled as we briefly kissed.

— — — — —

When the three of them returned a couple hours later, Roana didn't elaborate further about what the three of them had been doing, and I felt I didn't need to know. I loved and trusted my mate, and I now welcomed opportunities like this to show her how much I did.

After I gave her a Mutton au Gratin dinner, with sliced sautéed potatoes in a goat cheese sauce no less, along with the dragons' usual raw fish, my mate made sure I was nicely rewarded for my good behaviour as well.

"Mmmmm . . . you're spoiling me," I sighed as I reclined against her in the bathtub.

"Uh huh," she agreed. "Shaving you, too," she added as she slowly and carefully drew that knifeblade along my jawline, carefull to leave my goatee alone though.

"I'll never want an electric razor again," I blissfully smiled with my eyes closed.

"Especially as electric razors can't do this," she said as she finished with the knife and began running her hands across me in the warm water.

"That's it," I replied, now turning in the tub towards her.

"Uh huh," she agreed as I took her into a passionate kiss.

— — — — —

Over subsequent days, in the afternoons and evenings after our day work, Roana proceeded to step up my flight and combat training with Substance . . . teaching me how to fight now, both on and off my dragon. Even though they didn't participate, I was conscious of the two Dragons and Riders who were always watching us from a distance whenever we were outside our house. Needless to say, we and our dragons were pulled by Árvekni from regular Dragon Rider patrols, and I wasn't about to disagree. Substance continued her own translated guidance sessions of me with Roana's help as well.

But Roana drilled me on how to fight with a sword, bow and arrow, and even to my amazement, standard-issue Norwegian military sidearms and submachine guns.

"This is getting a bit heavy-duty, isn't it?" I said hesitantly when she presented me with a submachine gun for the first time however at a firing area hidden in the forest of a neighbouring island.

"Only a few of us know how to use such weapons to defend our people," she answered. "We decided to accept this knowledge from the outside after the Nazi massacre in our village during World War II, but we almost never use it, or these horrible guns, which we only have a few of. Do you wish to stop your training though? You are free to do so at any time."

"No," I decided, looking at my mate and reading in her eyes that she was hoping I would go all the way in this with her. I then shouldered the weapon and took aim at a nearby practice target sheet.

"No, hold it like this," she instructed, moving close beside me, "and aim like so," she demonstrated as she repositioned the gun and my arms holding it. "Even though this gun fires rapidly, we make every shot count. Outsiders may fire randomly and recklessly with these things, but we do not."

— — — — —

Roana continued to train me harder and harder, putting Substance and I through increasingly complicated manoeuvres and exercises each evening now . . . with me standing on Substance in flight, weapons in hand, and even jumping between dragons. That was still scary. But I knew that at least I had both of them to catch me if needed . . . which I did a few times at first.

In later drills, Substance and I were even diving through the flames of other dragons, with Substance carrying me close against her body, her wings wrapped protectively around me. Then came perhaps the most challenging drill of all.

"Lance, Subtance," Roana said as we flew alongside her and Rökkr, "this time, you are to simulate an emergency recovery and crash landing."

I glanced at Substance. She seemed somewhat uncomfortable with this now, which for her was unusual.

"Ready?" I now asked her.

Substance just gave me a quick glance back, and a clear nod, before facing forward again and bracing herself for the drill.

Thousands of feet in the air, I once again leapt off my dragon without a parachute or anything else that I could save myself with. Amazingly, I had become used to doing this now, even learning how to control and steer myself as I fell. It was the closest humans could come to flying by themselves like dragons.

Soon, I felt Substance surround me with her legs as we both plummeted through the air. We both smoothly rotated my body so I lay flat against her, with my arms wrapped around her forelegs just below the shoulders to avoid me slipping out of her grasp. Now was the most nerve-wracking part. All I could do was just wait for the 'wham' of hitting the ground. I felt Substance's legs tighten even further around me, especially around my head. I couldn't see a thing as my dragon held me. I had to trust her completely.

Suddenly, we hit the ground, with my dragon cushioning the shock of impact as much as she could for me. Finally after rolling and scraping along the ground several times, we came to a stop.

But Substance wasn't relaxing the grip of her legs and wings around me. She wasn't letting go.

"You alright, Substance?" I asked as I tried to emerge from her protective cocoon. "I'm fine," I assured, as I tried to reach my hands to give a reassuring pat on her neck that I was okay. Substance then began moaning gently, but I couldn't understand why.

"What is it?" I gently asked with concern now.

I heard Roana now grunt in dragon, standing near us, having landed with Rökkr. I felt Substance nod her head once in response as she continued to hold me tightly.

"You want to know?" I now heard Roana say to me.

"Yeah," I replied from within Substance's wings still enfolded tightly around me. "I do."

"She lost her previous rider," my mate said, "like this. A man she came to love very deeply. They were struck by lightning while in the air on patrol together in a thunderstorm. They were both stunned and he fell off, despite his harness. She dove after him, but he impaled on a tree branch before she could reach him. She managed to grab him though as they both fell the rest of the way among the trees to the ground. But he died as she held him, probably just like she's holding you now."

That hit even me hard.

"She then retreated to being a wild dragon," Roana continued, "living in the caves, even off by herself for a long time. But she didn't like being alone, not after knowing love as she had. She decided she wanted to spend her life . . . loving. If it couldn't be her rider, it would be the entire village. She loved knowledge and sharing and learning. The previous Guardian of Memories saw all that, befriending Substance and taking her on as her apprentice and successor."

"Before you came," my mate noted, "Substance was settled in her life. She once had decided that she wouldn't take another rider. As a Guardian, she was somewhat insulated from anyone expecting her to. But you, Lance, your arrival, your needs, and what you represented were enough to convince her to volunteer and risk entering into another lifelong bond as Dragon and Rider. This crash landing drill has likely brought it all back for her. I'm sorry, Lance . . . to both you and her. I wasn't thinking about this when I had you both do it."

"We all need to heal," I said with understanding as I now was able to reach and fully embrace my dragon with my arms around her neck. "Substance," I assured, "I know about old wounds and deep hurts. I'm here for you, and will hold you for as long as you want me to now. I love you, Substance . . . I love you."

Roana tearfully smiled as she knelt down and laid an understanding hand on Substance's large head as well. I then felt Substance hold me even tighter against her. Rain started falling, and Substance started to release me as she looked up into the darkening skies.

"No," I gently said as I continued to hold her though, moving up to rest my head on her large neck next to the saddle girth and her strap of office. "You're not done healing with me yet," I sensed.

I felt the dragon tighten her grip around me again as she lowered her large head against my shoulder and closed her eyes, and we all began to get wet in the rain. Even dragons needed to heal from losses and lost loves. No one appreciated that more than I did.

— — — — —

Eventually we all got up and flew home. We quietly ate a light supper together on the floor in our house as usual, but food wasn't what we really needed right now.

"Let's go to bed," Roana suggested.

Soon, the four of us were relaxing in our family bedding near the fire together. Substance began gently grunting to me, looking down, almost like she was confessing something.

"She says that her previous rider called her Hjarta, or 'Heart' . . . his Heart," Roana translated. I laid a hand on Substance as she looked at me with one eye, while she lay nestled between Roana and I, and Rökkr. "She and her rider were ones among us who came to see more in each other than they did in anyone else, which sometimes happens."

"I've met Helga and Frelsari," I noted in agreement, "that first day I was here."

"Hjarta and her rider were even closer," my mate continued. "She says they didn't want to marry or mate among their own kind, just be with each other, for life . . . a life that was cut short."

I just reached to embrace Substance's head as she continued murmuring with her eyes now closed.

"She says this between all of us now is as it should be," Roana conveyed. "But she loved him."

"You knew a deep love, Hjarta," I said to her, " . . . one that you carry with you still. We are lucky to have that, and you, in this family."

Substance murmured again, now looking at me with her eyes open.

"She says that name is sacred to her," Roana translated, "and asks that only he call her that, which he still does, in her meditations and dreams."

"I understand, Substance," I replied. "I will always respect that now, I promise."

Substance just curled even more tightly around Roana and I, laying her head on the quilt across my lap as we all bedded down now for sleep.

"Substance picked the right man . . . both times," Roana sighed as she nestled close behind me. "And so did I here."

"My two loves," I gently said, reaching to kiss both my dragon and then my mate. Substance now smiled as she looked at me with half-opened eyes as Roana seriously kissed my ear. I just closed my eyes, accepting this duality in love. Before I knew it, we were peacefully fading off to sleep together.

— — — — —

The training continued though. But it included more than just riding and fighting on dragons.

"So, this is the treaty," I admired, pulling a leather folio secured with a clasp from one shelf in Substance's archives in the hillside bunker one afternoon, as my dragon looked on beside Roana and I.

"Our signed copy of it," my mate confirmed. "Listen, I have some vet work to follow up on with a Gronkle up at the dragon caves now, but read this, and memorize its provisions. That should be easy for you as the text is in Norse, Bokmål, and English."

"This is part of my training, too?" I wondered as she gave me a peck on the cheek and was already turning to go.

"Yes," she simply replied as she now proceeded to depart without giving me the chance to ask why. "I will be asking you questions on it tomorrow. Just don't take the original here out of the archives. But could you make dinner at home afterwards?" she added, slipping out the door. "Rökkr and I will be a while up at the caves. Love you."

"Love you, too," I sighed, now looking back at the folio I was holding.

Substance then nudged me, and turned to depart as well.

"You have work to do, too, eh?" I half smiled.

My dragon just nodded with a grunt and now left as well.

"Say hi to the guards watching me outside," I quipped.

Now alone in the archives, I used this as an excuse to sit myself down on a stool at Hiccup's drafting table—something I'd been wanting to do anyway. Glancing briefly at Toothless' and Fury's rigs on the nearby wall, and feeling intensely surrounded by my own heritage, I opened the folio in front of me, and began reading.

"Just as Roana was telling those agents," I remarked aloud to myself as I studied the provisions subsection by subsection. Reading the treaty's English text instead of the Norse almost felt like cheating, but my recent training had been intense, and I was feeling like I deserved a break here.

— — — — —

Next came combat drills, on that other island . . . sometimes with live gunfire! At times Roana and Rökkr would train and fight beside Substance and I—other times, they were our opponents.

One night, I was on an exercise alone in the woods on the other island in the dark, this time without Substance at my side. Suddenly, I sensed someone behind me. I swiftly pivoted and pinned my attacker to the ground, knocking the syringe from their hand, narrowly avoiding getting quietly attacked and drugged.

My attacker head-butted me with surprising force though. I fought through the throbbing pain in my nose however, leaping and tackling my opponent as they tried to escape. I pinned this attacker face down and brought one of their arms up hard and high behind their back, just short of where it would dislocate or break.

"I surrender!" Roana said with me pressing the side of her head against the dirt. I released her and let her up. "Good," she then praised as she now sat up beside me. "You didn't give me a way of counter-attacking you this time. But you should have continued and drugged me without hesitation before I had a chance to surrender," she said. "So you get only a 'B' grade on this exercise. I would have woken up in just a couple hours. These are just half-doses. I've been defeated and drugged in these exercises before. Besides, as we both know, I've had a lot worse than this."

"You are one hard core warrior," I admired to her as we sat together in the nighttime forest now. "But I haven't exactly been noticing other Dragon Riders going through quite all this. Sure, I've seen others go through basic training, but what is all this really?"

"Do you trust me?" Roana simply replied.

Now my growing dragon nature inside me kicked in. I knew what my answer should be. "I love you, Roana . . . and all that it means," I readily replied. "Forgive me for asking."

"You are dragon now, my Lance," she admired. "A committed guardian and mate . . . what we truly aspire to be here."

"I am," I replied with total clarity.

"Good," she accepted.

"Just 'good'?" I queried.

She now simply looked at me with a subtle, inviting smile.

I then just rolled her back onto the dirt, leaves and twigs of the forest we were in, and took her, without word or question. Life was simple and straightforward here, but yet oh so deeply rewarding and satisfying.

This was what being Vikings, Berkers, Dragon Riders and mates together was all about.

— — — — —

Then, on another dark, rainy evening, Roana made Rökkr ready to go again.

"Have fun, you two," I said as I started cleaning up after dinner, thinking they were going off to another one of their meetings.

"No, you are coming with us this time," she replied. "Get dressed and tack Substance up."

I just gave a look of astonishment at her.

"Now . . . please?" she requested.

Soon, we were flying. The rain had abated and the clouds had moved on. It was now a moonless but starry night as we descended to a mountaintop of another island. A circle of torches, and a number of other Dragon Riders were already there.

I was almost ready to ask Roana what was going on, but I decided out of love, respect and trust towards her not to.

We landed among the others. I noticed Árvekni and Chief Roald were there as well. Roana then dismounted from Rökkr. She walked over and said a few words quietly to the two elders and several others, before they nodded and handed her something.

"Lance," she called to me, " . . . step forward with your dragon companion."

I dismounted and then did so in silence, with Substance beside me. Roana then stood in front of me with Rökkr at her own side, now holding what appeared to be a thick leather sash in both her hands before me . . . the same as she was wearing.

"Lance," my mate said, "our people and dragons came here a thousand years ago to live free . . . to both hide, and fight, for that freedom. We have not lasted as a people this long just by chance or luck. While all of us pledged to defend ourselves and our way of life with our lives, some of us have chosen to dedicate ourselves more deeply to that sacred calling . . . learning, perfecting, and sharing the arts of true guardianship. I have been such a guardian of our people for some time, as has Substance beside you with her previous rider. It has been the real desire of both her and I, and among my own deepest prayers, that you come to share in that calling with us. Not everyone can or does however.

"But Lance, you have accepted the training, you have resisted even your own nature," she continued. "You have accepted and blended the ways of a dragon with your own. So, you are now Dreki Riddari or 'Dragon Knight'," my mate proudly informed me as she presented me with the sash which carried both a ceremonial knife and several memory drug syringes. "This is a rank and title known only to others who also possess it. To everyone else, we are Dreki Reitmatur, Dragon Riders. This sash and knife may be worn within the village, and will mark you among our people as a Rider of distinction, a commander among Riders, but they will not know you are a Knight, nor how much you have trained. You and your dragon are now among the best of warriors though, able to fight any foe as one, capture any trespasser, even go up against foreign elite forces, and most importantly for Berk, to know when not to. Our secrecy and stealth is our strength. Our people and their future now rest with you. Fyrir því drekar."

"Fyrir því drekar," I repeated.

"Fyrir því drekar!" the other Dragon Knights proclaimed around us.

"You are my mate," Roana now quietly admired. "An equal I had not dared to dream of. But you're getting a shave again tonight when we get home."

I just smiled at her. "I knew you'd been up to something interesting at these meetings, Dreki Riddari," I then said, putting an arm around her. "But this explains everything else . . . knowing the treaty, how you knew to rescue me from those agents out of that cabin, and more, doesn't it?"

"Our training and practices here gave me the ability to get us out of that jam as you've told me I did," she smiled. "But I was your guardian from the moment I met you."

"Somehow, I knew you were," I admired.

"My Lance . . . my Dragon Knight," she sighed as she held an arm around me, while the other Dragon Knights now welcomed me into their ranks.

I now turned and gave her a passionate kiss. To me, that was my real reward for all I had just been put through.


	21. Chapter 21

As I was walking through the village commons one afternoon, I felt something bounce off the back of my leg. It was familiar, but not from here.

I turned around to see a half-grown young Night Fury, the one I had noticed in Substance's class the day I was asked to speak to them several weeks ago. He was balancing his left front paw on of all things a soccer ball, and gesturing with his head between it and me.

"Þú vilt mig til at spila boltanum met þér? You want me to play ball with you?" I queried, in both Norse and English as I was usually doing now. He readily nodded with an eager bark.

"Well, I was more into hockey growing up in Manitoba," I smiled, then relaxing into English for the moment, as I didn't know what the Old Norse word for 'hockey' would be anyway, "but I played a little soccer. Fara á undan, senda þat vegur minn. Go ahead, send it my way. Sparka til mín í. Kick it to me."

The young Night Fury now got a determined look in his eyes as he kicked the soccer ball hard with his foreleg. Unfortunately I had forgotten that both goalie and defender had been my worst positions in what soccer I had played, as the ball sailed right past me, bouncing down the commons out of the village, across the ceremonial area, and right over the cliff into the ocean.

"Whoops," I said apologetically as I looked at the young Night Fury again. He just sighed, almost seeming to smile at me, before he took to the air, soaring over my head and right over the cliff himself as I turned to watch him go.

"He probably found that ball in the ocean anyway," I now heard a familiar voice say behind me.

"I'm still sorry he has to go get it," I shrugged as my mate walked up beside me.

"So, he's learning you're a klutz," Roana kidded me while nonetheless putting an arm warmly around me, as I now automatically put one around her as well. "You wouldn't be a true Ýsa if you weren't. Hiccup was famous for it, even writing about it fairly often in his journal."

"Has anyone else ever written journals?" I asked as we looked out towards the ocean together. "I mean it's like everyone seems to know my ancient ancestor better than they perhaps do each other."

"Others have written letters, kept small or private journals," she said. "There are a good number of them in our archives. But Hiccup says in the last part of the journal that he wrote it during a time of great change to help the rest of us remember why we came here, and what we live for," my mate replied. "He knew he was writing it for all of us. But he also wrote it as a gift for his mate, a testament of their life together, and of his love for her and their family. I have read many stories and books, especially when I was on the outside. But Hiccup's journal is still my favourite. I even wanted a mate like he was," she said now looking at me, "and lo and behold, I got him."

I just turned and embraced Roana.

"You still haven't read that last third of his journal, have you?" she asked.

"It's been on my 'to do' list," I sighed, looking at her. "But I don't know where our household copy is anyway. Although with Substance, I suppose I could just go read the original in the archives."

"That is in fairly fragile condition as it's been handled so many times in the past," my mate cautioned. "We only touch it when we need to now. It's one thing we keep debating, whether to send it to the outside for proper conservation. I suppose one day we will, we just need a sufficient 'push' or reason to among ourselves. But reading the journal is mostly a wintertime activity among us . . . something families gather close together to do, having lots of interesting discussions along the way about various aspects of life. You and I have been busy, and I'm just waiting for winter for us to curl up and share it together, for days at a time."

"Winters are that bad around here, eh?" I wondered.

"They're that wonderful," she assured with a kiss. "Yule, reading the journal, warm baths and cozy fires and long snuggles under the sheepskins and quilts? I can't wait for ours."

"Don't you people enjoy summers while you have them?" I smiled.

"Summers we work," Roana replied. "Winters we do eeeverything else," she then seductively hinted, "which is why we enjoy and look forward to them so much. Your soccer pal is coming back though."

Sure enough, the young Night Fury was rising above the cliff edge in the distance behind me, flying back towards village from the west, with the soccer ball clutched in his front paws.

"He's been wanting to meet you for a while," Roana added, "but thought you were too important and busy. He could use a friend though, even a big brother, as he lost his mother two years ago when she was trying to lay his sister's egg, and his father accidentally flew into a power transmission line on the mainland at night while hunting for deer during a thunderstorm soon after that. Our outside network had to scramble to get to and cremate his body on the spot before outsiders came, and flights over the mainland for hunting have been discouraged since then—even dragons get sick of fish diets at times. This young dragon though, he's quiet but bright."

"Who takes care of him?" I wondered.

"An aunt, an elderly one at that," she replied. "He does the fish runs for them both however, and works pretty hard, since he isn't fully grown and can't carry that many fish. You should get to know him," my mate encouraged as the dragon now came in for a landing in front of us. "But why don't you two play in the upper part of the valley?" she then recommended. "There's plenty of space up there, you won't lose the ball, and we try to discourage at least the older kids from playing in the village . . . and you qualify as one of those, just."

"Nice," I wryly smiled.

"Glad you enjoyed it," she continued with a smirk.

"One of these days I should start hitting you with zingers," I sighed.

"You're welcome to try," Roana invited. "But remember, I have Thorsten blood in me, and my ancestor was renown for having the best zingers around. Rökkr and I are off to the dragon caves for check-ups. Play ball with your new friend here. See you later."

"You want dinner?" I guessed.

"Oooo, you get zinged, but still cook anyway," she smiled, turning back for a moment. "How lucky can I get?"

"Dragons aren't the only ones who get sick of fish," I replied.

"I just have a little trouble with mutton, even though Tana next door has given me whole roasts at times, since what we eat there was also a patient of mine," she reminded me. "I merely hid it from you in the beginning to win you over. But I simply have to remind myself that it's one main reason why we have them. Besides, we all die and get eaten by something anyway, even if it's just flames in our case."

I now couldn't help remembering the funeral we attended for an elderly village woman the previous evening as my mate talked. That woman had unfortunately already been eaten by flames, falling into the cooking fire in her house as she lugged a heavy pot, dying before the rest of the village could get to her after hearing her screams.

"As long as they have good lives," Roana continued though about the sheep, "that's what counts. I gotta go though, and you have some soccer to try and get better at . . . you okay?" she now noticed.

"Being 'eaten by flames'—it just reminded me of what happened yesterday. I'm worried about Tana," I said, concerned about our own helpful but elderly neighbour. "The same thing could happen to her. Tana lugs pots to and from her cooking fire, too."

"Invite her over for dinner then," my mate suggested, "so she doesn't have to. Here, we don't just worry—we do."

"We owe her a few, don't we?" I smiled. "Go see the dragons. I'll see you later."

"Love you," Roana said, briefly coming back to me as we parted with a kiss.

Even though Berk was appearing to last forever, something now felt tenuous to me about life here. I was already beginning to say goodbye to people and dragons I had met. I looked across the commons to see a new family with dragons already moving into that deceased elderly woman's house. In finding this village, I thought I had found a place that never changed. With all the change and tumult I had lived with on the outside, even in my own life—I thought here, I would escape from all that. I especially wanted to escape from the spectres a few of my microbial discoveries had created, especially one . . . that had come in on a meteor, which is why I fell for that 'Code Blue' ruse the way I had.

A ball bounced off my shins again, interrupting my thoughts.

It was time for me to play. "Come. Komdu," I invited the young Night Fury, picking up the soccer ball as I then led the young Night Fury towards the upper valley, and away from the cliff.

Soon, my young dragon friend and I were safely beyond the village amid pasturelands and farm fields. The memorial stone monuments were near us, off to one side on a prominent knoll. I turned, looking around me briefly—breathing in all the shades of greens and browns of the open valley and the surrounding forested mountains, as well as the fresh sea air, even the grey of the cloudy skies above. Ohh, how this was home to me now.

My appreciation of it all was interrupted by a bark however. "Okay, I'm ready for you this time," I smiled at the dragon as I placed the ball on the ground, holding it with a foot. "Let's see how good you are. Vit skulum sjá hversu gótur þú ert."

He crouched in readiness for me. I kicked the ball hard. He easily caught it with his right wing and smoothly scooped it back down to his right forepaw, ready to return it.

"No fair," I sighed, "you have wings _and_ four legs. Nei sanngjörn, þú vængi og fjórar fætur."

The dragon just seemed to smile and shrug.

"Alright," I accepted, getting into the best defensive crouch I could. "Kick it. Sparka þat."

Of course it sailed right past me again, even though it was low this time. I ran across the open pasture to retrieve it. Finally picking it up, I then just turned around and kicked the ball high into the air, hoping that would at least be something of a challenge for the young Night Fury . . . and of all things, I got it past him! The ball sailed right between his outstretched wings as if they were goalposts.

"Goalll!" I shouted, raising my hands in victory.

Now we had a contest!

The dragon and I remained apart as we each kicked the soccer ball back and forth as hard as we could, sending each other even further back across the fields in pursuit of it. I actually got better as I went, but so did he. I couldn't remember ever having this much fun now as an adult as I leaped, dived and rolled for that ball again and again. It was wonderful watching my Night Fury friend as well as he gracefully bounded, even soared at times to catch the ball using all the limbs he had. I no longer minded whether I got it past him or not.

"Lance! Dinner!" I eventually heard . . . from down in the village.

I stopped cold as I caught the ball this time. "Ohh boy," I said, as much to myself as to the dragon. "I'm in trouble, kid. I said I'd make dinner."

But then I had an idea.

"Komdu. Come," I invited, holding the ball. "Viltu kvöldmat? You want dinner?" I smiled, figuring that if I was in trouble, Roana would be nicer with a young dragon around.

The dragon nodded and barked eagerly, but then paradoxically took off and flew in the other direction, towards the dragon caves. I stood in the pastures for a moment, stupefied. Not seeing him return, I shrugged and began walking back towards the village carrying the ball, sure that he would look me up for it sometime.

As I approached the village with no small degree of apprehension though, I felt not one but two thuds behind me. I turned to see not only the young Night Fury, but the mature dragon I presumed to be his aunt as well, both looking at me.

"Uhh, I could be in _real_ trouble here," I hesitated to myself out loud, knowing how much grown Night Furies eat. But this was Berk . . . hospitable, generous, help-your-neighbour-on-the-spur-of-the-moment Berk . . . or so I hoped. I crossed the fingers of my left hand at my side as I held the soccer ball in my right arm, praying hard for the gods or Spirit to have mercy on me, even protect and shield me.

With the two dragons following behind, I nervously stepped up on my porch, almost as if it was laced with land mines now. I slowly opened the door.

"There you are," I heard as I saw both Rökkr and Substance already gathered in the family area for dinner as Roana brought a platter of raw fish to them. Our elderly neighbour, Tana, was helping my mate, her own Zippleback companion apparently elsewhere for the evening, as Tana brought a bowl of boiled vegetables to the floor dining area next to the dragons as well. Inviting the neighbour to dinner—another thing I had forgotten to do. I felt I was really in 'hot water' now, just as those vegetables had been.

"Hope you don't mind fish," Roana said without looking at me.

"Fish sounds absolutely wonderful!" I enthusiastically responded, figuring I might as well tuck my uncomfortable news right in with that. "I brought a friend—s . . . do we have enough . . . fish?" I winced as the young Night Fury and his aunt now both appeared at the open doorway right behind me.

Roana turned and looked at me, at us. She just looked, without betraying an expression. Time came to an absolute standstill. I had experienced all of this before in my previous marriage . . . right down to the thumping of my heart as if it was trying to savour what could be its last beats.

"Of course," she smiled. "You and your young friend will just have to go raid our cold locker. Rökkr filled it up with fish this morning. One platter's worth should be fine. Velkomin, tengja okkur," Roana then said to the older dragon, gesturing with a hand for her to sit herself down next to our dragons.

I turned back towards the doorway, almost collapsing with relief.

"Lance," I then heard, closer behind me.

I _knew_ the prospect of getting off easy here was too good to be true.

"Yes?" I said, slowly turning back around.

Roana just looked at me for a moment . . . smiling, almost unable to keep from laughing.

"You thought you were dead meat, didn't you?" she queried.

"What ever gave you that idea?" I now blithely tried to cover.

"It was written all over your face, even your body," she noted, "brighter than a billboard in Las Vegas."

"You've been there, to Vegas, eh?" I said.

"Ohh yeah," she smiled, giving me a deep, reassuring hug.

I hugged her back with equally deep relief, closing my eyes.

"Your ex-wife was really rough on you, wasn't she?" Roana gently said in my ear.

"Yeah," I simply sighed.

"You're in Berk now, Lance," she soothed, even rocking me a little. "You made a friend, gave a young dragon who's had some hard luck a very good time, even lost track of time, and then invited his family over for dinner."

"Well, the dragon invited his aunt," I confessed.

"You did good," Roana assured, " . . . and I love you."

I buried my face against the side of her head and neck, closing my eyes really tightly now.

This was heaven.

— — — — —

But just as I was out of one fire, as my young friend and I were bringing back a platter of raw fish from the cold lockers, walking across the grassy village commons, Árvekni stepped in front of us. The intimidating dark red Nightmare then grunted as he gave me one of his usual glares.

The young Night Fury beside me lowered his head and looked nervous.

"Roana var heima. Roana is at home," I said to the Guardian. "Ek get enginn skilji þig án hennar. I cannot understand you without her. Komdu. Come," I nervously sighed.

I glanced at my young companion as Árvekni allowed us to pass and proceeded to follow behind us. My new friend wasn't giving me any reassurance. It felt almost like we were bringing a policeman home . . . even the chief of police.

"Roana," I said as the young Night Fury kindly opened the front door of our house for me as I held the platter, "Árvekni wants something."

My mate rose from eating her own roasted fish and came over towards me, relieving me of the platter of raw fish while my young friend went to join his aunt. The three adult dragons were sharing a fish platter, while Tana sat on a floor pillow next to them, eating some of her boiled vegetables.

"You are nervous tonight, aren't you?" Roana smiled casually to me as she briefly moved to lay the platter down in front of the young Night Fury and his aunt, before returning while Árvekni towered behind me at our doorway. My mate then looked at the Nightmare, grunting at him, presumably asking him what was up. She gently turned me around to face him as he began grunting back.

"He's just saying that he's pleased with your progress as a Dragon Rider, but hasn't had the chance to tell you," she casually conveyed as Árvekni glanced aside at our guests. "He also wants to talk with you one-to-one, with me along of course, but sees we have company and now is not the time. He asks that you and I please look him up soon, as he would enjoy talking with you."

"That's all?" I wondered, looking at my mate. "No 'How's the protein regimen coming?' or 'Why isn't it done yet?'"

"He's learned, with help from both Substance and I, that such things take time," Roana replied. "He's cool with it now. No dragons have died lately, so we're doing good. But you are in serious need of some stress relief tonight, mister," she noted, passing a hand across my left shoulder. "Your shoulders are so tight I could play a tune on them right now."

"I wouldn't refuse," I sighed, before turning back to our guest at the door. "But thank you, Árvekni. We will talk soon. þakka þér, Árvekni. Vit munum tala fljótlega," I said bowing my head towards him.

The dragon bowed his head in kind, and then turned to go. For the first time, I noticed he was limping somewhat on his left leg as he stepped down off our porch, bracing himself with his folded wings in the way that Nighmares walked on the ground, almost as if they were crutches.

"He's limping," I noted to Roana beside me just as she was closing the door.

"He's had it for some time," she said, pausing to watch him with me. "It comes and goes. He's almost eighty years old, and has been our Great Guardian since World War II."

"That's a lot of guarding," I remarked.

"He'll be doing it until the day he dies," she sighed. "He won't slow down or stop. It's just not in his nature."

"We should invite him over to dinner sometime," I thought.

"Good idea," my mate smiled as she now closed the door.

I finally sat down to dinner myself, as my young new friend insisted on taking and roasting a fish for me in his mouth, just the way I liked.

His aunt now began grunting as she looked at Roana and I.

"She says that her nephew has been looking forward to meeting you, Lance, as you were about the only human in the village, besides me, who he thought might understand soccer, once I told him what the ball he had found was used for . . . which I don't remember doing, but anyway. My doctor ex-boyfriend would understand soccer, too, having been educated on the outside, but he's not exactly the playful sort, the way you are."

"It looks like we've found another missing piece of your puzzle though," I gently encouraged, leaning over to give her a kiss.

She looked at me briefly, smiling. "Eat," she then encouraged me as the four dragons with us wolfed down more fish, and Tana finished her vegetables.

— — — — —

After giving the dragons stew for dessert, and sharing some simple sweet bread among us three humans, Roana and I bid goodnight to our two dragon guests and Tana.

"Don't forget your ball. Ekki gleyma boltinn þinn," I encouraged, offering the soccer ball back to my young friend. He simply looked at me, gesturing with his head off to the side, grunting.

"He says, 'Keep it for next time,'" Roana conveyed.

"Deal. Takast," I agreed with a nod and a smile.

Our own Night Furies contentedly settled themselves down on the family bedding nearby to simply rest and digest together as Roana and I closed the door and proceeded to clean up from dinner.

"Massage, or bath?" my mate soon offered me after we had dried and put the final platters and other things away in the simple wooden cupboards around the cooking area.

"Your choice," I replied, turning to face her again.

"What's eating you?" she asked however, putting her arms around me. "You seem to have been on edge for days now."

I sighed, finding my mood changing now. "The elderly woman we tried to rescue, but had to say goodbye to, for one, if you want to know," I said looking down.

"She was in pain already," Roana replied. "I'm told that she had lost her husband just months ago after nursing him for a long time. The rest of us I'm sure looked after her, but even I saw that her body was failing her, and she wasn't the type who wanted a lingering death like some of our old experience. She went quick. It just wasn't something that was pleasant for the rest of us to deal with afterwards. I'm sure she's apologetic, but grateful to us."

"Where were her children?" I wondered.

"Not everyone has children," she responded. "It just never happened for them, and we don't have the most sophisticated medicine to figure out why anyway. But death happens, Lance, just as surely as life does," Roana gently assured as she looked at me. "We just see it here more readily than you did on the outside because we're close, and everyone helps one another."

"I suppose so," I accepted, still looking down.

"But that's not all it is, is it?" she kept probing. "Because you were like this before yesterday. You still bothered about the two Soviets we got rid of a while back?"

"My past has come after me, twice now," I noted. "I try to put it out of my mind as you say, but things like seeing that woman die . . . it reminded me of an armageddon, or the possibility for one, that I inadvertently discovered some fourteen months ago . . . inside tiny microbes. I saw people burning, in my mind, after that. At the time, Pentagon brass in Washington, DC were initially congratulating me for the military and civil defense potentials of my discovery, until the first cultures on human tissue came back.

"I'm breaking security protocols here," I then said looking away and snapping myself back. "I've already likely just committed a federal offense, possibly even treason. I'd better just shut up."

"You carry all that inside you?" Roana asked, drawing closer to me and rubbing my heart with her right hand.

"Yes," I replied. "And with what I know, the Russians _would_ kill to get it, no matter what. I don't know if I should be here anymore . . . if it's safe for me to be living anywhere but under guard in a secure U.S. federal facility. I'd have to take a lot of mind drugs to forget the valuable but dangerous knowledge I've been amassing for years now."

"Lance," she said. "I am with you, no matter what, or where, okay?"

"The dragons need you, here," I noted.

I now felt a nudging at my back, along with a dragon murmuring.

"Substance says, 'You're needed here, just as much,'" my mate conveyed. "'We are your home, and your protection. Do not trade us for a cell. You deserve better than that . . . so much better.'"

"But Lance," Roana then said for herself, "thank you for sharing your burden with me. I want to share it with you. I don't need to be aware of the top-secret details, but know that you are no longer carrying it alone. I know, with certainty, that you did your work for the best and noblest of reasons. It just went bad on you. That wasn't your fault, okay?"

"That I was good enough to discover it, and them, was," I sniffed.

"Then your curing the dragons is your atonement for that," she comforted me, "just as your very presence is the happy ending of Asger and Alltaf's tragedy."

Substance murmured behind me again.

Roana laughed a little, explaining, "She says, 'You have bonded with me as Dragon and Rider, even Knight. You sentence yourself to a cell, you sentence me with you, as well as your mate, and her companion . . . our whole family. I for one, want to keep flying in freedom, and I can't do that without you.'"

"You really could, Substance," I said without looking at her.

"She says, 'You know what I mean, Companion,'" my mate translated back as the dragon grunted.

"The more I've thought about it, this is dangerous, Roana," I cautioned as I looked at her. "I really didn't want to be discovered here, especially by the Soviets."

"From what you say, they discovered you were living here the night those two agents found us at the inn," she said, "the night I they took my memory of us from me. So it's already too late, Lance. But relax some, okay? Remember, Norwegian intelligence cleared the two Soviets we intercepted. They reported that the agents remembered nothing of their encounter with us, even under intense questioning, and no listening or other devices were found in their clothing. So all the Soviets have is a vague report from their first encounter with us that you are here, under our protection. Our riders have also reported seeing a Norwegian naval frigate patrolling the open ocean near us, so we are even safer."

"Alright," I accepted, looking up at the ceiling and trying to shift my attitude and focus, before looking down again and closing my eyes. "But Roana, you married a 'Doctor Frankenstein' here . . . or someone close to it."

"No," she tearfully reassured, now holding me tightly. "No. I have mated with a wounded angel, who has a heart of gold . . . a man who has suffered while doing the best he could, trying to do right."

"I want to make love with you," I sniffed.

"Take me," she said breathlessly before she kissed me, hard.

We couldn't remove our clothes fast enough.

I was able to sleep well that night, for the first time in a while, having shared my burden at last with my mate and dragon family. Roana kept herself wrapped around me even more closely than usual as I fell asleep.

Gods how I wanted to make my past, and that knowledge and those memories still in my head, just go away though.

— — — — —

"Good morning, my love," I heard breathed into my ear even more sweetly than usual.

"Roana," I sighed happily, just embracing her with all my strength as I took my morning stretch that way instead.

"Wow, what a hug!" she admired. "You cracked my back real good here!"

"Thank you," I just said appreciatively to her as we lay in our floor bedding for another precious moment beside a dragon.

"You're more than welcome, my Lance," she soothed, giving me a kiss. "Just enjoy this. Everything else will take care of itself."

"I wish it were that easy," I sighed.

"You're thinking too much like Árvekni," she smiled as she now caressed my face. "A threat or problem around every corner."

"Just don't let me start glaring like he does," I quipped.

"Not gonna happen," Roana warmly assured.

"Where's Substance?" I said, turning my head and seeing only Rökkr beside us.

"She must be off at her morning elders' meeting, or on pastoral calls already," my mate replied. "Time we got up anyway. We have our own work to do."

"I would enjoy weekends around here, you know," I sighed.

"_That's_ what winters are for," she smiled, getting up out of bed as, well . . . her naturally beautiful self.

Roana and our dragons were right. As I enjoyed looking at my mate while she went over and dipped a small iron pot of mead tea from the cauldron and returned, kneeling down to ask Rökkr to heat it for all of us, I decided that life was just too good here to worry about other things all the time. So I sat up, leaning against Rökkr, and drank in the wonderful view of my mate near me. While our dragon quickly heated the teapot she was holding by the handle with a gentle blast, Roana just glanced at me, smiling.

Of course, there was a knock at the door to interrupt it all.

"Here," I said, finding Roana's under tunic on our bedding and tossing it to her as I reached for my own.

"Thanks," she said, now putting the hot teapot safely down on the hardwood floor, catching her under tunic and quickly slipping into it before answering the door as I slipped into mine.

I heard a male voice just outside the door, although I wasn't really paying attention.

"Lance, it's a Dragon Rider stand-by," Roana came back saying after closing the door. "A whole group of outsiders are being watched. They're heading towards the beach by kayak and are close to landing there. They've done nothing yet, but if they climb the mountain . . ."

"It will be 'all hands on deck'," I surmised.

"You got it," she confirmed.

"Well, I probably shouldn't start a new series of cultures then," I sighed.

"And I could easily put off my vet calls for another time," she now began smiling. "There's not _that_ much going on with the dragons, sheep and goats right now."

"Mmmmm, a day off after all," I smiled, still sitting up in bed against Rökkr.

"We are on stand-by," she warned, while nonetheless seductively stripping out of her under tunic in front of me once more.

"Come here, you," I sighed eagerly.

Even the tea could wait. And Rökkr? He just went back to sleep with a bemused smile on his face.

— — — — —

We were awakened by another knock at the door.

"Thank you," my mate nonetheless replied as she kissed me briefly but deeply. "This has been one fabulous day, or at least morning off."

"I love you, Roana," I said quietly, but so intensely.

"Don't stop," she said. "Just don't ever stop."

There was a second knock at the door, accompanied by some muffled words.

"I love you, too," Roana added, giving me a very quick peck this time as she grabbed her under tunic and rose towards the door again.

I began getting up as well, putting on my under tunic as Rökkr stretched and stirred himself, while my mate talked with whomever was outside the door.

"We're on, Lance," Roana said turning back from the door as she closed it and began hustling to rapidly put on the rest of her clothes and Dragon Rider gear. "They're climbing the mountain. It's a full alert to intercept that group and their boats, every Dragon Rider available."

"That beach!" I now cursed, quickly getting up to put on my own rider's clothing and gear. "I swear, I'm gonna start removing it with a shovel myself!"

"After this now, I'll join you," Roana agreed. "We've never had an entire group of kayakers show up and climb like this before."

"Never?" I asked.

"Well, maybe four to six at most from what I can remember," she said, donning her harness and knight's sash as she then moved to tack up Rökkr. "Families, or a group of friends. But this sounds like a dozen or more . . . an entire tour group."

"Where's Substance?" I said, now grabbing her saddle off its rack on the wall. "She's still not back."

Seemingly right on cue, my dragon almost burst through our door, grunting urgently.

"She says we're needed on the intercept team," my mate translated as I was already putting Substance's saddle on my dragon companion. "There are over a dozen trespassers—half on the mountainside, and half on the beach."

"They're scattering like roaches," I sighed with irony. "This is going to be _really_ fun. Let's go."

I must have set a new 'personal best' for tacking up my dragon quickly as Roana and I both mounted our rides. Rökkr and Substance then bounded right out the front door with us on their necks and straight up into the air, joining a veritable squadron of Dragon Riders as we all flew up towards the summits of the southern mountains.

I had never been in formation on a mission with this many Dragons and Riders before. As there was enforced silence among Dragon Riders once we reached the mountaintops, I looked to Roana next to me for hand signals, even though I was now a senior rider and knight as well. The left rider among pairs coordinated signals between them. Things just worked faster that way.

The leaders of any intercept were normally the one or two on-duty riders who had been watching the trespassers for some time, either from our observation posts or from the air, and were most familiar with them. So Roana watched ahead of us, as I also glanced ahead of us now and then, while the leaders of this mission made their hand signals, soon followed by other riders in front of us in turn. My mate then looked at me and first pointed straight down, then pointing three fingers at herself, and four fingers at me. We were headed down to the beach for whatever third and fourth persons there were in front of us to pick up.

Substance and I briefly nodded as I looked behind us to see another pair of riders on Night Furies looking at us, as one of them quickly pointed downward to the other, then holding up one finger, as the other nodded, holding up two fingers. The farthest two kayakers along the beach would be picked up first, then we'd pick up ours, with the nearest two trespassers at the front being picked up last . . . if nothing else so the trespassers didn't kick the others in their group behind them with their flailing feet as we hoisted them into the air. We Berk Dragon Riders were just that considerate.

Quickly glancing back down at the village, curiously I saw Árvekni down there on the ground this time, watching us and apparently waiting for our return next to Chief Roald. For the first time, I began to feel something for that intimidating dragon. He wouldn't normally be missing out on a mission like this. Maybe more than just a limp was catching up with the old warrior and guardian. I made a mental note to ask Roana to check him out afterwards, and invite him to dinner tonight.

I then noticed Nadder, Nightmare, Zippleback and Gronkle riders further back in our upward spiral, who would be picking up the kayakers' boats and gear, now had their left fists raised. The two riders immediately behind us then raised their left fists, as we all circled over the valley one more time before crossing the southern range of mountains. Roana and I quickly held up our left fists as the riders in front of us soon did as well. Instruction hand signals had passed from front to back along our two columns, and now fists were being raised in readiness from back to front—all in silence. Even in such large numbers, our Dragon Riders remained a smooth, coordinated force. I couldn't help the feeling of admiration and pride rising within me now. But at the same time, while interceptions had become routine to me in the recent past, with Árvekni approving Roana and I returning to occasional patrol duty, always still accompanied by two other riders—this time I found myself nervous.

Our leaders on Night Furies now broke out of our upward spiral, leading us over the southern mountaintops. They slowed in the air though as over half of us began descending below them. In these situations, our dragons were focused on where they were flying and aiming towards, and it was up to us riders to watch for the forward sweep of our leader's hand and tell our dragons to go by pressing both our legs against their necks.

Both Roana and I looked up, seeming to wait for an eternity in the air off the mountainsides to the west of the beach. We were fast running out of the protruding ridge that would hide us from view of the beach though—just a few more seconds before we would become visible to the intruders.

Then there it was . . . the forward sweep of our leader's hand now high and directly above us. All of our riders swept our left arms forward as well to make sure the rest of the force saw the signal, as I then pressed both my legs firmly against Substance's neck. Both she and Rökkr drew their wings in as we plunged into attack dives at forty-five degree down angles, following the two Night Furies and Riders ahead of us and aiming for a reference point just in front of our interceptees on the beach.

At just the right instant, both our dragons began pulling up out of the dive and levelling off. I looked ahead as the pair of Night Furies in front of us rapidly picked up the farthest trespassers on the beach—one, two—just like that. Then, as I was slammed by g-forces down hard into the saddle, Rökkr and Substance swiftly picked up our interceptees right at the bottom of their arcs as they climbed back up into the air again, spiralling away from the island. I gave a quick glance behind me as the Night Fury pair of Dragons and Riders behind us then picked up the last two remaining kayakers on the beach. Only a few seconds had elapsed, and our team had retrieved every kayaker we had been assigned. Thankfully there were no escapees to be chased down with a second attempt.

I then glanced at Roana and Rökkr with their interceptee dangling below them, who was wearing a fairly oblong camouflage green backpack. I then finally looked at the passenger Substance was carrying below me, who was wearing one as well. This relatively young, pale-skinned man with short-cropped brown hair seemed to be struggling a little as Substance firmly gripped his right upper arm with her right forepaw. He just thankfully was not screaming in terror. But maybe that wasn't such a good sign, as it wasn't all that normal. I launched into my spiel anyway.

"You have entered a forbidden reserve. We will be setting you down in just a moment," I almost sighed in English as we flew over the southern mountains and our valley came into view. This man certainly didn't seem to need much reassurance.

"Danke," the man simply said in a kind of odd German, as he reached with his free left hand under the collar of his blue chambray shirt to what seemed like a black t-shirt underneath.

I now looked down cautiously.

"Just itch," my interceptee excused . . . in English as he saw me looking at him. But it wasn't a normal German accented English.

_Oh my God,_ I now thought as I now briefly looked forward. "Efni, lyfting honum svo ek geta ná til hans bringa," I now quietly but urgently asked my dragon in Norse.

Substance dutifully hoisted him closer to me, and I now reached down and shoved my right hand under his shirt against the t-shirt where he had 'itched' himself. Just under t-shirt, even under the skin of his right front shoulder, barely perceptible, I felt a hard square implanted, with one raised button on it.

Our force had likely made a critical mistake in picking up these trespassers at all.

The first Dragon Riders were already setting their interceptees down on the ground however, right in the middle of our village, as Nadders and Nightmares were setting down the first of their kayaks right beside them.

I had to think fast. "You're right, just an itch," I said, withdrawing my hand, trying to hide what I had discovered about my passenger now. I surveyed the scene as Substance and I now approached to set our interceptee down. "Efni, setti hann nitur í sundur frá ötrum, metal þorpsbúa okkar á vinstri," I quickly directed.

Substance now flapped, braking in the air as she set our interceptee down among some surprised villagers apart from the other kayakers. She then aimed the two of us towards a patch of open grass nearby. I now feared our guests might be able to understand Norse as well as English, so I couldn't risk tipping them off with my realization, as I looked for Árvekni and Roald with the intention of alerting them apart from my interceptee and any of the other kayakers.

Substance landed and I got off her. "Halda aftur af honum þar," I instructed the villagers as they held my trespasser nearby where he was, fortunately restraining his arms so he could not further touch or activate whatever that device was I had detected under his skin. "Komdu," I then said to my dragon, motioning her to walk with me as I set off across the commons towards Árvekni and Roald as the final interceptees were now being set down on the ground by our other Dragons and Riders.

"Lance, what is it?" Roana said as she rushed to catch up beside me. She could read I was troubled from a mile away now.

"Did your interceptee itch himself?" I urgently asked as we walked through a crowd of villagers drawn in by all that was going on.

"No, why?" she replied.

I had been targeted. Through those devices implanted in their shoulders, I now presumed that my interceptee was informing the others that he had found me with his 'itch', likely through triggering silent vibrations in those implants, which might also be capable of sending a message to the outside via coded radio transmission. That must have been how the previous two agents had been able to get their confirmation they had encountered me to the outside, I now realized—why they were so cooperative in not minding being drugged. It had all been a test run while their satellites must have watched how we intercepted and handled them . . . a damned test run!

They knew I was here now though, and the kayaker I had picked up could identify me. I was just thankful that I blended in as I walked through the crowd, looking like other village men with a goatee and longer hair along with my village clothing. I no longer really bore much of a resemblance to my old pictures on the outside.

But before I could even utter a word about any of this back to Roana, I and everyone else then heard one word yelled. "Syeĭchas!"

That word wasn't German though . . . it was Russian.

Machine gun fire, even explosions, then seemed to erupt all around us. Substance immediately took to the air behind me, grabbing me with her claws and quickly drawing me tight against her chest and abdomen with all four of her legs. I lost sight of Roana.

"Let me up!" I now shouted to my dragon in English amid the weapons fire as I tried to get out of her grasp and up into the saddle. But Substance continued holding me where I was beneath her with an iron grip that I couldn't fight if I tried. She was flying me up and away from village now.

"We need to help the fight!" I urged. But Substance was only flying me higher towards the mountaintops along the south ridge. A combined deathly roar of gunfire, explosions and dragon blasts continued erupting behind us, but I couldn't see what was going on, and I realized no one down in the village could see me either.

I managed to look around a little and saw a number of dragons now independently flying in almost a swarm surrounding Substance and I, both towards the peak we were headed for, and breaking off to other mountaintops as well. My dragon then flew us amid the trees of one forested mountaintop, finally setting me down on the ground before landing almost on top of me as I scrambled out of the way and back to my feet.

"What's going on, Substance?" I almost demanded. "We're Dragon and Rider, Knights no less. We should be in that fight, not fleeing it!"

I was now interrupted by both the cessation of gunfire down in the village, and an announcement on a bullhorn . . . in two languages. "Hættu! Vit höfum sprengju, öflugur nógur til at fletja þetta þorp. Stop! We have a bomb, powerful enough to flatten this village."

Amid a now heartrending carnage of a number of humans and dragons, I saw that the kayakers also had compact submachine guns at the heads of a village man and woman forced down on their knees, whom I didn't recognize from such a distance.

"Setjast á jörtina! Vopn bak höftum þitt! Sit on the ground! Arms behind your heads!" the apparent leader of the trespassers continued on the bullhorn. "Hver af þér er Lance Hyse? Which of you is Lance Hyse?"

I closed my eyes as my stomach sunk. I knew I couldn't surrender myself to them, but I couldn't just watch this go on either.

"Substance . . . we have to fight," I quietly said as I gazed in shock at the spectacle unfolding below us.

"No," I now heard in a deep voice that was not human.

I snapped around, looking at Substance as she now gazed deeply at me. "Not fight alone. Remember knight oath," she said by herself to my amazement.

"Know when to fight . . . and when not to," I remembered, looking to one side. "But the others," I said, trying to overcome my disbelief that she was speaking English to me for the first time.

"Others also here," she replied as she and I looked at several dragons now gathered around us.

"They flew cover . . . for our escape," I realized, "so it looked like you were escaping with other dragons, without your rider."

"Yes," she simply replied. "This was plan. At least one elder, one knight escape."

"And we were it," I said, looking to one side, realizing what was going on. "What about Roana, and Rökkr?" I then asked.

"This for all now," Substance replied. "We go, get help. We only free leaders."

I knew she was right.

We and the other dragons then heard a couple of gunshots echo across the valley from the village. "Framleita Lance Hyse, eta fleiri munu deyja! Produce Lance Hyse, or more will die!" the Russian accented voice on the bullhorn demanded.

Among the surrendered villagers sitting down on the commons grass with their hands behind their heads, I then saw one I recognized as a fellow Dragon Rider, from the harness he was wearing, raise his hand. "I Lance Hyse," he said loudly in his best Norse-accented English as he proceeded to slowly rise and step towards the gun-wielding kayakers.

I briefly closed my eyes tightly, lowering my head. That villager was taking my place, stalling for time and sparing others. I had a terrible apprehension of what they would do to him when they determined he wasn't really me. It began to sink in though why he was sacrificing himself for me.

I then felt a nudging at my thigh, but it wasn't Substance. It was the young Night Fury I had been playing soccer with, my friend. The young dragon looked at me, gesturing with his head east, off and away from our island.

Feeling deeply conflicted; I knelt before him, taking his face into my hands. "Fyrir þig, mun ek fara. For you, I will go," I finally said. "En ek mun snúa aftur. But I will return. Og ek mun vera at leita at þér. And I will be looking for you. Fyrir því drekar."

The young dragon nodded before he moved to nudge me tightly, as I embraced his head. We then parted, looking at each other as I climbed onto Substance's saddle. My dragon and I then took off alone as the other dragons stayed behind amid our mountains and kept watch.

This was war now, and Substance and I both had a job to do . . . survive.


	22. Chapter 22

Substance flew me close against the treetops as we hugged the southern flank of our island, before breaking out low across the sea channel and darting close among a group of other small islands as the sun began to set behind us.

Soon, we were approaching the Outside Berker lifeboat station. But something didn't seem right. It was too quiet, and none of the lights were on. I could just hear what sounded like two men loudly cursing as they seemed to be trying to fix something, perhaps an auxiliary generator. But it wasn't any dialect of Norse they were cursing back and forth in . . . these men were speaking Russian.

Before I could even share my concerns out loud, Substance was powering us back into the sky, turning fairly sharply and heading us southwest this time along the coast as darkness now fell.

My worst fears were confirmed however. Not only had our island been penetrated, but so had our outside contact point, to try and intercept any of us going for help. This opposing force had indeed apparently studied us and knew what it was doing.

Following the central Norwegian coastline, almost as if we were headed to Roana's uncle, Substance and I flew on through the darkness. She seemed determined and set on where we were going, so I didn't ask. I just took it on faith that my dragon was heading us for an alternate outside contact point of some kind. I finally took a deep breath now as the shock of all that had happened finally settled within me. While I was full of silent doubts and regrets, my dragon just kept resolutely looking forward and flying onwards.

After flying for a good while over islands and rocky and forested bluffs and shores in the dark, Substance turned to a more southerly course inland, flying us over farms and small towns before descending over an airfield. This wasn't exactly looking like a clandestine contact point to me. I was naturally nervous about landing with a dragon among outsiders, but it wasn't like we had a choice anymore. As we approached a landing, I began to notice that there were only military aircraft on the tarmac however, both fighters and support planes. What looked like a large Boeing AWACS radar plane was even taking off on a runway nearby.

My Night Fury landed me in front of what looked like a modest, two-storey office building near a control tower in the complex. Amazingly, the few military personnel we landed near, at least most of them, didn't seem startled, but came towards us.

"Sorry, I don't speak either Bokmål or Nynorsk," I apologised as I dismounted from Substance.

"Dragon Rider?" they now queried, in English to my amazement.

"Yes," I confirmed. "Fyrir því drekar," I added as a confirming password. "I'm originally from the Outside, from North America."

"Doctor Hyse," a senior-looking officer said as he now approached us. "We have been informed about you . . . from the Berk network, and NATO."

He looked to be in his late forties, with short cropped brown hair, and wearing a shirt and tie with a dark blue windbreaker. Seeing a gold stripe and silver star on each of the epaulets on the shoulders of his jacket, I presumed he was a flag officer.

"General," I said.

"Brigader," he gently corrected.

"Sorry, Brigader," I apologised. "Berk and our Outside Lifeboat Station have been taken over by what I presume are Soviet forces . . . elite commandos, I would guess by the thoroughness of the operation so far."

"Come with me," he instructed, turning around. "And bring your dragon. It's supposed to be top secret."

"She is a tribe elder," I said as I motioned for Substance to follow us, "a Guardian of Memories."

"So your dragons govern with your people, as I have heard," he responded. "Can you and she make decisions for your tribe?" the brigader then asked as we walked inside the building, and he led us down a broad ramp into what looked like a command bunker.

"Yes," I replied as we passed through an open heavy steel doorway. "I am a Dragon Knight, so together, she and I are prepared to make whatever decisions you require."

"Do you authorize a Norwegian or NATO invasion of your island, should that become necessary?" he now asked point-blank as he showed us into what looked like a high-tech video conference room within the bunker. "Få meg NATO-kommando, Brussel," he then instructed an aide who sat down at a console on one side of the room.

I looked at Substance. She nodded as she looked back at me, but added, "Our forces involved."

"Yes, we authorize an outside invasion, if necessary," I now replied to him, "but we must be involved in such a force as well."

The large screen spanning the opposite wall across the conference table from us now lit up.

"NATO Command, duty officer Colonel Alderson," a man appearing on the screen now said. He seemed to be in a room that very much resembled NASA's Mission Control that I had visited a number of times in Houston. In the multi-service NATO headquarters, this colonel was with the US Army, wearing standard Army green service attire with a tie, and silver eagles on his collars. He was also middle-aged, with short black hair that was greying at the temples. "What is your situation?" he asked.

"I have a Dragon Elder and Dragon Knight from Berk with me," our brigader now replied, looking at the screen. "They report Berk has been invaded by elite Soviet forces. The Knight speaks English, I'll let him explain."

"Colonel," I picked up, now looking at the screen myself and leaning forward on the conference table next to the brigader, "I am Doctor Lance Hyse. I have a Top Security clearance through NASA, and am now a Dragon Knight of Berk. I am with Berk's Guardian of Memories, and we can represent our tribe in this crisis. Briefly, our Dragon Riders intercepted a group of about a dozen of what seemed to be ordinary sea kayakers today, all male from what I could tell. We brought them to the village, as is our standard practice, for injection with our memory drugs. However, once we landed in the village with them, they surprised us, drawing side arms and submachine guns . . . and mowing down any of us who opposed them," I said sadly, before continuing. "As I and my work are important to Berk, my dragon immediately evacuated me out of the village to get help, but not before we saw them conquer us and heard them demand me by name over a bullhorn."

"Is there anything classified from your work, Doctor Hyse, that they could gain as things are now?" Colonel Alderson asked.

"No," I replied. "All I've accomplished there so far is to identify that the dragons are to varying degrees suffering from calcium protein deficiencies, and we're starting to address that with a calcium supplement regimen. I've barely begun other analyses to address their inbreeding at this point. The only documents I had in my house or lab in the village were unclassified medical studies from NASA on spaceflight osteopenia, and classified letters simply certifying the end of my active employment with NASA and that I had not been the subject of a 'Code Blue' recall."

"Very well," he accepted.

"But when we approached our Outside Lifeboat Station though," I resumed, "our primary contact and exchange point, all the lights were out, which was unusual, and I heard two men talking in Russian before my dragon flew us away to this base. So I am presuming that lifeboat station is compromised as well."

"Understood, Doctor," the colonel replied onscreen as he looked and gestured to one side. "We are calling up reference maps and satellite surveillance of your island now. As you can appreciate though, your village is very difficult for an opposing force to openly invade without significant casualties, possibly on both sides."

"I'm aware of that, Colonel," I replied. "That's why as representatives of my people right now, my dragon and I request to be part of, and even lead any counter-invasion force."

"You said you are a Dragon Knight, correct?" he asked.

"Yes," I confirmed. "And my dragon has partnered with a knight before me."

"But you haven't trained with authorized NATO units, correct?" he followed up.

"I'm sure that was coming," I replied. "But no, not yet—just with my own people and dragons."

"I havve," my dragon interjected beside me.

"I-I wasn't informed they could talk, other than in their own language," the colonel remarked with a degree of surprise upon hearing and seeing my dragon companion speak.

"Substance here is an accomplished scholar of knowledge among them," I said looking at her. "And while she still can't speak Old Norse, she has been able to master some words in English, even to my own recent surprise."

"Language simpler sounds," she said in her own deep voice.

"Satellite imagery is beginning to come in," the colonel replied, " but you know the situation and locale better than we do. We've never had any invasion scenarios drawn up for Berk. So, what do you suggest?"

"Place commando teams in north and south mountains," Substance instructed on her own this time. "Snipers shoot invaders from there. Lannce, I go in, lead third team in direct air assault from east. They have bomb. Disarm or remove it. Dragons, Riders rally. Then threat neutralized."

"Sounds like a good plan to me," a new silver-haired figure wearing four stars on each of his air force blue collars said as he appeared onscreen now in place of the colonel. "General Harold Thorndyke, NATO Supreme Commander," the new man introduced himself. "But Doctor Hyse," he added, "while it's unfortunate we have to meet this way and under these circumstances, I bear a request from the United States that due to your clearance, knowledge and capabilities, you not endanger yourself by personally engaging in this mission."

"Berk agrees with request," Substance now said beside me.

"I can't accept that, Substance," I sighed to her.

"One bullet . . . you could be lost," she replied as she looked at me.

"It's a request from the United States," General Thorndyke added onscreen, "but we will accept the decision of the Berk leadership."

"No, Substance . . . please," I quietly urged her. "A dragon has never gone into battle without his or her knight." I admittedly was fudging on that one, hoping it was true.

Substance looked down briefly. "I have lost one," she said, looking at me again. "Lose another, I could not bear."

"Watch you from a distance, lose you . . . I could not bear," I replied, laying a hand on her.

Substance faced the screen again. "He will not fall into opponent hands," she pledged.

"Accepted," General Thorndyke simply replied.

I looked at Substance and nodded in silent agreement, knowing what that could mean.

"Day or night attack?" Thorndyke then asked.

"Night," Substance responded.

"I can have two Navy SEAL platoons mobilized to your area in approximately sixteen hours," General Thorndyke noted.

"I can have advance Coast Ranger scouts in place on the north and south mountains of their island before then," our Norwegian brigader replied beside us, "as well as an FSK and MJK team each join the SEALs."

"You're right, Brigader, this should be at least a joint operation with Norway," General Thorndyke agreed. "We'll aim for a go time of Zero One Hundred Hours—twenty-seven hours from now. Brigader Husa, can you have support units in place around the zone perimeter by then?"

"Yes," the brigader next to me responded as I looked at him with surprise. "In addition to existing patrol craft, we will have helicopters, corvettes, and even medical teams in position and ready. I will inform and clear this with Oslo. And," he said, looking at me, "we will have a strike team take out the Lifeboat Station as well."

"At Zero One Hundred, day after tomorrow," Thorndyke clarified. "Very well," he then accepted. "The clock on what is now Operation Northern Sun is running. Let's check in again in eight hours. Get some rest, everyone . . . that includes you, Doctor and Elder."

"We should head back, to alert whatever resistance forces are assembling," I said.

"That's not a good idea, Doctor," General Thorndyke countered. "Let the Norwegian advance units do that job. Elder, your kind can hear and understand ultrasonic broadcasts, right?"

"Yes," Substance replied. "I can record message to broadcast."

"My units will convey that broadcast on megaphones," the brigader confirmed next to us.

"Very good, let's get going," Thorndyke agreed. "Anything else?"

"That is all for now from me," Brigader Hyse confirmed. "Elder and Knight?"

"Proceed," Substance agreed as well.

"Thorndyke out," he said before the screen faded to black.

"Elder, Knight, stay here," our brigader now requested. "We will fetch a microphone and record that message now."

"You speak, too," Substance encouraged as she looked at me. "Rökkr can tell Roana you safe."

I briefly smiled at my dragon.

— — — — —

A whirlwind of activity then began around us. Substance and I both recorded a message that only our dragons would hear, advising them that outside help was coming and to make contact with and help the Norwegian Coast Rangers when they arrived. After she had recorded these instructions grunting in Dragon, Substance then looked at me.

"Rökkr, Roana," I said into the mike with some emotion, "Substance and I are safe. We've made it to a Royal Norwegian Air Force base. Please keep each other safe as well, and gods and Spirit willing, we will see you very soon. All our love."

I then nodded for the technician near us to stop recording as I then looked at Substance. She just gently nodded at me. We also soon informed the brigader that our dragons and people understood just Old Norse almost exclusively.

"Then we will select Rangers who are versed in the old sagas and skalds," he quipped.

Substance and I were subsequently shown to guest quarters inside the bunker. While I was presented with the first real bed I had seen in sometime now, I just hauled the mattress down to the floor and placed it next to the several mattresses and quilts I had requested for Substance. We could have ordered food, but given what we had both just experienced and been through, neither one of us felt much like eating.

"Sleep, Lannce," my dragon encouraged after I had removed her saddle and collar and was just sitting on the couch in the windowless underground room for the moment, just vacantly staring at the floor. I silently nodded, stripping down to my under tunic and turning off all but a small lamp in the room before I lay down next to her, the way I was used to sleeping now.

"I wonder if Roana's able to sleep where she is," I sighed as my head hit the pillow. "I wonder if she even 'is' anymore," I dared to add.

"What you feel?" my dragon asked next to me.

"I don't know," I responded as memories of leaving her behind amid the initial chaos of the assault on our village now flashed through my mind.

"Through love, part of her with you," Substance said. "You know."

"I feel her with me, perhaps in me," I quietly replied, looking up at the ceiling. "But that doesn't seem to be telling me about the rest of her."

"What if your choice, your belief, influence what happens, what is?" the Night Fury posed next to me.

"You mean my belief in her could help her pull through?" I asked, shifting up onto my elbows to look at Substance.

"Yes," my dragon said. "Could help you both."

"Then she is not only alive," I sniffed, "but she is tenaciously organising a resistance among the dragons and others in those mountains, as well as treating and comforting others, the way she's so good at!"

"That is what she doing," Substance replied. "What you help her do. Send her that belief, that encouragement . . . that love."

"Yeah," I smiled, laying my head back down again on my pillow for a wonderful instant almost surging that encouragement and love to Roana through the air . . . before another chilling thought intruded. "But what if it's just my belief?" I then asked.

"She do what you believe, no matter what, no matter where," the Guardian of Memories affirmed next to me.

I took a deep breath as I thought about that. "You know, Substance," I finally replied, "I can find peace with that, no matter what. She is doing good, just as you say."

"That peace real," my dragon assured. "But I feel things not over yet with you two. Rökkr keep her safe. Keep them both safe."

"Did you see them fly away?" I asked, glancing at her.

"No," Substance responded. "But I feel."

"Well, given that Toothless was able to feel and find Astrid for Hiccup, I'll take your word that they're out there," I decided.

"You know journal," my dragon praised.

"The parts of it I read anyway," I qualified.

"Can tell you something?" she now asked in a changed tone.

"What, Subtance?" I encouraged now sitting up, not having expected this from her.

"Feel . . . uncertain," she said.

"Uncertain? What do you mean?" I gently responded.

"Just uncertain," she repeated.

I now moved out of my bedding to sit cross-legged on the floor in front of her in just my under tunic. She raised her eyes to look at me, and we just gazed at each other for a moment. I had never seen her, or any dragon, less than sure and confident before.

"I am here for you, Substance," I felt almost guided to say to her now. "You will never be alone, never face anything alone, okay? I promise."

"You not going to cell?" she wondered.

"We're in one now, actually," I replied, glancing around. "But no, I am of Berk. That is my home. I couldn't leave it for good if I tried."

"Thank you," she simply said.

"Let's pray together," I invited. "Just pray and meditate together for a while."

"You my companion," she said with almost a tearful smile.

"And you're mine, Substance," I assured as I now placed my nose against her snout and began to simply hum.

The tables had turned. I was now reassuring, caring for, even loving my dragon. I smiled as a few tears flowed from both of our closed eyes. A powerful energy seemed to grow between us as my face lay against hers.

"Let's share this with Rökkr and Roana," I suggested, breaking my hum but keeping my eyes closed.

"Yes," my dragon quietly agreed as we resumed humming. "You good Guardian of Memories," she complimented, briefly interrupting her humming again.

"It's you, in me now," I gently smiled as we kept humming, adding, "Rökkr, Roana, share this. We are with you, you are with us. Let our thoughts through Spirit keep you comforted through the night, and give you strength where you are."

"Our thoughts on you, where focus belongs," Substance prayed as well in my language this time. I felt her open her eyes now as I opened mine. "I no longer uncertain, no longer scared," she smiled.

"Me neither," I tearfully smiled as I embraced her large head tightly.

"Sleep," she invited.

"Head by head," I agreed, ending our embrace and scooting up my bedding so that I could lay myself right beside her head. "You need anything, even just someone to talk to, let me know, okay?"

"Promise," she said, using a favourite phrase of Roana's and mine.

"I still can't get used to you speaking English," I smiled, looking at her.

"Speak Dragon whole life," she replied with a slight smile. "Why not English? Much easier than Norse. Should have been learning this from Roana before."

"Why hasn't Rökkr spoken English by now if you can?" I asked.

"I work on him when we get back," she pledged, still smiling. "Lannce . . . thank you."

"I thought I'd be the one thanking you," I said, lying on my pillow. "But we did this, together."

She seemed to lose her smile a bit now as she closed the one large eye of hers I could see.

"Substance?" I asked, just sensing something about her.

"Uncertain again," she confessed.

"What can I do?" I offered, rolling in my bedding right against the side of her head. "Do you think you're going to die?" I gently asked, offering to help her deal with whatever it was head on.

"We all die sometime," she said with her eyes still closed. "Uncertainty feels like choice."

"You mean you're getting a feeling not so much about death, but about choice," I responded, facing her on my pillow.

"Yes," she said. "Should not talk though. Sleep."

"Is it as strong as what you feel about Rökkr and Roana?" I asked.

"Don't know," she answered.

"Substance, could I share your uncertainty with you?" I offered.

"Sleep," she decided.

Now I felt uncertain as I lay in my bedding. "Substance?" I said.

"Yes?" she replied.

"I'm sharing your uncertainty with you anyway," I told her, " . . . whether either of us like it now or not."

"Thank you, Lannce," she replied as she carefully shifted her large head against me.

"Sleep," I said, snuggling myself up against her.

— — — — —

Early the next morning, both Substance and I were startled awake by a knock at our door.

"Doctor . . . Elder?" a voice said.

Getting up in just my under tunic, I opened the door. "Yes?" I sleepily responded.

"Doctor, I have been asked to report that advance scout units are in place on your island," a junior yeoman reported in remarkably good English. "They have made contact with your spouse, Roana. She and Rökkr send their love and urge you and Substance to stay safe."

I smiled with relief at that.

"Also, Brigader Husa has requested your and the Elder's presence in the conference room, as we are due for check-in with NATO Command in fifteen minutes," the enlisted man concluded.

"Very well," I replied. "We'll be there."

"Would you or the Elder like any breakfast or coffee?" he offered.

"I haven't had coffee in a while now," I sighed, "but yes, one with cream and sugar for me, along with a Danish and fruit . . . and raw fish, preferably cod—"

"Salmon," Substance corrected from across the room behind me.

"Make that raw salmon, with water in a bucket for the Elder please," I smiled, glancing back at my dragon.

"Yes sir," the enlisted man responded as I closed the door.

"Well," I stretched, "I'd better shower quickly here."

"What is 'shower'?" Substance asked with curiosity.

— — — — —

"This is a shower," I replied, soon stepping into the tub in the bathroom and drawing the curtain, as Substance poked her head through the door.

"You like rain?" she asked.

"It's warm rain," I said, splashing some over to her to allow her to feel. "It allows us humans to wash and rinse quickly."

"Why you bathe in water always?" she asked. "Not just lick yourselves as we do? Although we appreciate you scrubbing us. That feels good."

I laughed at that while I quickly shampooed my head. "We humans haven't licked ourselves clean since well before our earliest records thousands of years ago," I replied. "I can't really tell you why."

"Interesting," she replied. "Breakfast here," I then heard her say.

"Go and eat, Substance," I encouraged as I continued rapidly soaping myself. "I'll be there soon."

"Man says ten minutes," she relayed.

"I'll be out in a moment," I assured. It was hard for me to believe I was talking with a dragon here, as if she were, well . . . family. But I realized that Berkers had been doing precisely this since the journal almost a thousand years ago.

I finished my shower, soon emerging from the bathroom with a towel around my waist to find Substance finishing her fish breakfast from a large metal platter. She was already wearing her collar of office around her neck again and ready to go.

"Coffee over there," Substance said, glancing at an end table next to the sofa. "Eat food in conference room. No time."

"You are keeping me on schedule, aren't you?" I smiled as I proceeded to quickly change into my clothes.

"Yes," the dragon simply replied as she continued to look around the unfamiliar and advanced room. "Like our home better."

"I do, too, Substance," I agreed, finally grabbing my coffee. "Let's go."

— — — — —

"Good morning," General Thorndyke greeted on the conference room screen of our bunker. "First, Doctor, Elder, we request you keep out of sight in the bunker, as there will be some Soviet satellite passes over the base where you are during the day, and we don't want them knowing that Berkers or dragons have escaped to the outside. That could blow our plan here."

"Understood," I replied.

"We will helicopter you both direct from a hangar in this bunker complex this evening," Brigader Hyse responded next to us, "to an isolated peninsula near your island, where you can fly the final distance yourselves."

"The first two platoons, one Norwegian MJK unit and one US Navy SEALs, are already being deployed by submarine to the island," General Thorndyke continued as an accurate map of Berk was now displayed on one half of the large screen. "They will swim and land on the island just after sunset. We will bring two more platoons by helicopter directly into the village during the assault. Intelligence we now have from Dragon Knight Roana Hyse indicates that only her and one other Dragon Rider are free and available for this mission, although a number of dragons from the caves were apparently able to escape during the initial attack in the village, and are available for this mission under Knight Hyse's command. All other Dragon Riders on patrol were apparently either drawn in to deal with capturing the invaders in their kayaks, or were otherwise caught by surprise in the village."

"That's why they landed in broad daylight," I realized out loud. "They wanted to give us warning and draw all of us in to deal with them."

"Very likely, Doctor," the general agreed. "Satellite scans confirm the presence of a bomb in the middle of the village in a large backpack. We can only presume it is powerful, and could decimate the village if triggered, which we have to assume can be done remotely by one or more Soviet commandos."

"Bomb must be dealt with," Substance noted.

"We agree," Thorndyke replied. "We have at least one bomb disposal expert in each platoon. Their objective will be reaching and defusing that bomb."

"Casualties?" Substance then asked.

"For existing casualties, our satellite scans can unfortunately confirm a number among both dragons and humans," Thorndyke reluctantly replied. "Looks to be at least a dozen to twenty each from what we've been able to see so far."

Substance just lowered her head and closed her eyes. I placed my hand in support on her head.

"The enemy are already placing compact mobile electronics and are digging in emplacements at the western edge of the village overlooking the sea, and even in the mountains," Thorndyke continued. "They appear intent on ringing the island with detectors and listening devices, but seem to be guarding against an assault from the west more than from any other direction at the moment."

"That would make sense," I noted. "Forces flying in by helicopter would have the best element of surprise rounding the mountains and entering the valley at its open foot from the west. They'd be right on top of the village that way with virtually no warning if the other side weren't watching the north and south approaches from those western mountains. Fortunately our dragons prefer attacking swiftly from above and behind, so approaching over the mountains from the east is best for us."

"Agreed." Thorndyke then continued. "We requested Knight Hyse and forces with her pull back off the island to the peninsula staging point for the day though to avoid detection and possible premature engagement with the enemy. We had to assure her that we could keep adequate surveillance from our satellites, but she agreed. I have word now she's joining us by mobile hook-up in fact. Knight Hyse, are you there?"

A third image now appeared on the wide conference room screen on the right side of the map . . . an image I had never been so glad to see in my life.

"We're here, General," Roana said, wearing a headset and with Rökkr right next to her. They appeared to be in a large wooden shed of some kind.

"Thank gods, Roana," I sighed, almost with tears of relief in my eyes.

"I love you, too, Lance," she smiled. "But Lance . . . Árvekni, and I think Chief Roald as well, are dead."

I lowered my head upon hearing that, as did Substance.

"That makes us the leaders of our tribe right now, and Substance is our last remaining elder," Roana continued. "She, and you, have to be protected. Rökkr and I, and the others with us ask you both to stay out of this fight. We've lost too much already. Stay safe where you are . . . please."

I just looked at Substance, letting it be her decision as our senior leader now.

"Leaders lead," Substance replied. "They do not hide."

"As you wish, Guardian," Roana accepted, briefly bowing her head. "Congratulations on your English though," she added.

"Thank you," Substance simply acknowledged.

"We will see you at the rendezvous point," I then said, "after sunset."

"We'll be ready," my mate replied as Rökkr looked into the camera as well where they were.

"Get some rest," I encouraged. "You must have been up all night."

"We will, promise," she replied with a slight smile. "But Substance, what do you think of the Outside World?"

"Complicated," the dragon replied, looking around the conference room. "Prefer Berk."

"We do, too," Roana smiled more brightly now. "Sorry, General, please continue the briefing here," she then encouraged.

"I wouldn't want to interfere with the affairs of state for Berk," Thorndyke smiled on his portion of the screen. "But otherwise, I think we're done for now. Brigader Husa?"

"We are ready here," the Norwegian officer next to us confirmed. "We have halted all coastal shipping in the area, with the cover explanation that a nuclear submarine is crippled there with risk of radiation release. The Brezhnev regime in Moscow is in enough disarray right now that they might believe the nonexistent submarine is one of theirs."

"We believe this is an independent, possibly rogue Soviet operation on Berk," General Thorndyke picked up, "as NSA reports no intercept traffic on this operation that they can detect."

"It could be one Soviet general trying to boost his standing within the Kremlin," Brigader Hyse agreed. "Proving that he can gain a toehold on western soil, near the important sea and submarine lanes both we and they use. They had to anticipate we would detect it and respond though."

"Brigader," Thorndyke replied, "without going into details, I can guarantee the reason they are there is the man standing next to you."

Brigader Hyse now eyed me carefully.

"Doctor, I really wish that at least you would reconsider," the general continued. "I could invoke your classified rank and order you . . . but I won't do that."

"General," I responded slowly, "I left government service because I didn't want to spend the rest of my life in a cage, a bubble, or a secured lab deep in a mountain, especially making the discoveries I was. I wanted a family, and community. I've found those now, and I want to fight for them."

"I understand, Colonel," Thorndyke said, to Roana's visible surprise onscreen. "But Knight Hyse," he then continued, addressing her, "remember all free dragons have to remain hidden until tonight to preserve our element of surprise."

"Agreed, General," Roana responded. "We're having the free dragons with us hide in the loft building your forces are providing here as you've requested."

"Our submarine cover story is allowing us to mass other support units, including a hospital ship, near the area," our Norwegian brigader added.

"As the tribe's veterinarian, please see that veterinarians, vet techs and supplies are included among the medical resources," Roana requested. "We have to be prepared to treat dragons, as well as perhaps livestock we depend on. I will have a supply officer transmit a list shortly here."

"It will be done," Brigader Hyse assured.

"Anything else?" General Thorndyke then asked.

"Excuse me, Brigader Husa," Roana then interjected, "but are you related to my Lance there? Lance, have you asked?"

"Haven't had time," I smiled.

"And I'm not aware that we are," the Norwegian brigader smiled as well. "But we shall have to check into it after all this is over, as I've never met a Husa outside my family either."

"A reason to come through this for sure, huh, Lance?" Roana smiled. "You wouldn't want to miss out on solving that little mystery, would you?"

"We'll see you later," I laughed.

"Alright," Thorndyke concluded, "final preparations will be completed by Twenty-Three Thirty this evening. The Dragon Riders and the third and fourth platoons of FSK and SEALs will launch from the rendezvous point at Zero Forty Hours, and the assault will happen at Zero One Hundred. Next check-in will be at Twenty-Two Hundred Hours, but units may call here at any time if you need anything. We have an Ops team assigned to this, and it is the focus of our command center right now."

"Understood," those of us in the conference room and Roana in the field all replied at the same time.

"Thorndyke out," he replied as the screen went dark again.

I just looked at Substance beside me.

"You and I are of one mind," she assured. "I not want to be apart from who I care for either."

"I would suggest you both get some more rest," Brigader Hyse encouraged. "You will both be working late tonight."

"Feed him," Substance reminded, noting that I hadn't had my breakfast.

— — — — —

Substance and I tried to relax more at our guest quarters, and enjoyed a dinner later in the day with Brigader Hyse. They even brought in more fresh-caught salmon for my dragon. Before I knew it though, evening had come and we were boarding a Royal Norwegian Air Force Sea King helicopter within a hangar attached to the bunker complex. Substance was just able to fit inside the stripped down helicopter by bending her tail around behind me as I sat in a single remaining seat middeck in the payload area. As she was now the de-facto head of state for Berk, my dragon companion even got an honour guard send-off from the Norwegian military. Me? I basically felt like I was just her entourage.

As we flew off to the rendezvous point on the isolated peninsula in the helicopter, I recalled what my ancestor, Hiccup, had written in the journal about facing battle at the cove early in his life. He was right. The prelude to battle is the worst part of it, and nerves are a warrior's worst enemy.

Substance, fully tacked up wearing both her saddle and strap of office, looked at me.

"We see something good tonight," she assured me, "one way or other."

That really did help me, and I let her know by laying a grateful hand on her.

"I never expected to be a warrior," I said.

"Nor did Hiccup," she replied. "You are his son. Proud of you he is. All Ýsa are."

"The last Ýsa?" I dared to wonder.

"No," Substance assured, shaking her head. "We will not let it be so."

I just nodded in agreement, accepting that Substance and I would find a way through this together. We simply would not let me be the last Ýsa.

Before long, we were landing in a cleared patch amid a forest just behind a wooden building alongside two dark helicopters already there. Soldiers in camouflage greeted us, ushering my dragon companion and I amid the noise of our helicopter to what was a typical red, two-storey coastal net loft building along a quay in an isolated harbour that had been commandeered for the mission by the Norwegian military. While quiet on the outside with a few soldiers in camouflage keeping watch; inside it was a hive of activity as soldiers of the elite Norwegian FSK special forces and the other US Navy SEAL platoon were checking their gear and readying themselves to go.

As we entered the building, I was handed a thick watch on a black rubber strap. "This is to coordinate launch of the assault, sir," the American SEAL commando handing it to me explained. "When you see a flashing green light near the twelve, that's our go signal. Just press the side button next to the number 'two' to confirm. Understood?"

"Understood," I confirmed as I accepted the watch and strapped it around my left wrist.

"Also, take a helmet, body and leg armor," he then offered.

"Helmet, body and leg armour?" I wondered.

"It won't completely protect you," he said, "but it'll help protect against the gunfire we expect to encounter there. Plus it will allow our sharp shooters to identify you as friendly if you get separated from your dragon for any reason during combat. Do you wish a weapon?" the sailor then asked.

"I'll take a CAR-15, if you have one available," I reluctantly decided as I proceeded to put my leg armour on.

The SEAL member then gave me the American submachine gun, the same kind Roana had trained me on that was used by special forces across NATO. It was compact, light, and easier to handle while riding dragons than its longer cousin, the M16 assault rifle.

"Your unit is right over there," the man then gestured as I now saw dragons on the far side of the busy space. As I then put the vest and helmet on, I just wondered what the soldiers had thought earlier today when they were first introduced to Norway's, and perhaps the world's, biggest secret. The dragons for their part, Nadders, Gronkles, Nightmares, Zipplebacks and a couple other independent Night Furies, watched all the activity around them with interest, but seemed to be remarkably focused, even ready for battle themselves.

These dragons noticed Substance and I approaching though, bowing their heads as they did, as my dragon and I quietly nodded in acknowledgment.

Finally I saw Roana and Rökkr in a far corner of the loft space, conversing with what looked like the other platoon leaders. Roana was also wearing a vest and helmet now, and had a CAR-15 of her own slung over her shoulder. As she and her dragon saw us, they excused themselves and came over to Substance and I as we were surrounded by the other free dragons.

She just rushed into my arms as I held her tightly, unable to say anything at that moment. I glanced to one side to see Rökkr now nudging Substance with equal intensity as well.

"How are you?" my mate finally asked.

"Ready as I'll ever be for this," I sighed.

"So, did you have combat training before, Colonel?" she asked with a slight smile.

"It's an intelligence rank," I replied, "analyst, not field. But boy, have you caught me up on field training."

"All of us though," she said, "every dragon and rider here, want you and Substance to stay back, at least behind us, if you won't stay here."

"We will lead," I said, "from where Substance decides to have us lead from. She and I are of one mind on this."

"You are Dragon and Rider, as one," Roana admired.

"Just as you and I are," I replied.

"Come meet the platoon leaders," she then invited. "Substance, come, too."

Substance and I, along with Roana and Rökkr, were soon conferring with the Norwegian FSK special forces and US Navy SEAL platoon commanders, along with their helicopter pilots, telling them more about our village, while they shared the latest satellite imagery with us. Looking at the detailed photos, we noticed both our fallen, dragon and human, along with a group of four men standing in the middle of the commons, with what looked like a yellow mass in between them.

"That's our objective," the SEAL leader said, pointing to it. "With a guard like that, that's where we believe the bomb is. That they've positioned and are guarding it right in the middle of the commons, means that they both want us to see it by satellite to deter us from trying to retake the village, and that it's powerful enough to damage the entire village from there. We can only hope there is a time delay on it, as even reaching it, let alone defusing it, will not be easy."

I noticed Substance paying close attention as she looked at the photo with me.

"But why are they persisting in holding the village?" I wondered. "They have to know I'm not there by now."

"They're probably looking for any papers or materials of yours that could be of use to them," the SEAL leader replied, "and from the looks of the mobile satellite uplinks and other gear they're setting up at the western edge of your valley, it looks like they're establishing something of a listening post to monitor NATO naval traffic offshore. It could be for some larger plan of theirs, NATO is on a more general alert now for anything else that might be going on . . . but these folks probably knew it would be a one-way trip for them. They'll hold that island for as long as they can, and then likely use that bomb of theirs."

Substance looked at me. I didn't know what to say to her.

"It's time, sirs," a platoon member then interrupted us from beyond our circle.

"Platoons, dragons, form up!" we heard the FSK commander order in English as we all got up. It seemed that the Americans were indeed in a supporting role, and were probably mainly here to safeguard American interests as they concerned me directly. The Norwegians were in overall charge of this mission. "Colonel," the FSK leader then said, turning to me, seeming to be inviting me to translate the order for the dragons among us.

"Drekar, lína upp," I then said loudly.

"Lance, I have something else for you," Roana said, now taking me off to one side.

"What?" I asked.

"Just this," she said, giving me what looked like a dental retainer. Upon seeing it, I knew what it was, however. "The SEAL leader was supposed to hand it to you, but during our last update link, General Thorndyke asked if I wanted to hand it to you, as he told me about Lazarus."

I looked down.

"I love you, Lance," she said, "but knowledge of that protein you discovered on that one meteor cannot be allowed to fall into Soviet hands."

"I know," I replied, "it would allow them to start World War III and have their soldiers possessing it walk right through any post-nuclear environment. It would even help their sailors better endure their radiation-riddled nuclear submarines. The side effects however, were just not something our side could ever accept."

"That's why you really left your work, isn't it?" she asked.

"I didn't want to become a 'Robert Oppenheimer' of microbiotics," I said, downcast, "a discoverer or creator of even worse microbial monsters. Since Lazarus didn't work, they allowed me to leave. I just wanted a simple life now. But it seems I can never leave all that behind."

"I know," she empathized, embracing me. "It's okay."

I just touched my nose to hers under our helmets briefly, even kissing her, as I closed my eyes.

"But if you're captured in this battle . . ." Roana then noted hesitantly.

"I will be killed," I finished as I looked at her again.

"Sure you won't stay behind?" she asked.

"I'm sure," I said as I put the retainer in my mouth around my upper teeth. It contained a capsule that fitted against the roof of my mouth, which I could puncture with an upward thrust of my tongue if needed, giving me an almost instant, painless, and perhaps most importantly, hands-free death.

"Lance, I'm scared . . . for you more than me," she now quietly said.

"I want to be with our people," I answered, "and my family, no matter what happens."

"Could we say the Ýsa vows . . . please?" my mate asked, as we now stood between our two dragons. I just embraced her tightly.

"We live as one," I said with deep conviction.

"We fight as one," Roana continued with a couple tears falling down her cheeks.

"And we love as one," I replied.

"Forever," she concluded with a brief but passionate kiss. "Now, we are Ýsa."

"Both of us," I agreed. "And Ýsas never stayed on the sidelines," I suggested, embracing my heritage with a full heart now. "After all, I have a lineage to live up to here."

"We will make our ancestors proud," she now agreed, getting into the spirit.

"Vikings do no less," I now smiled.

"Lance," she said with a tearful smile.

"I know, Roana," I assured, giving her a deep embrace.

"Our dragons are waiting," she noted as we looked at both Rökkr and Substance, now looking at us to climb onto their saddles.

We took each other into one more passionate kiss.

As we rejoined our two dragons, I caught Roana and Substance grunting something quietly to each other.

"What are you two saying?" I cautiously asked, seating myself in the saddle.

"We're just agreeing to keep you safe. She asked me, and I asked her. We agreed," my mate replied as she then climbed onto Rökkr's saddle next to Substance and I.

"Is that all it was?" I asked my mate.

"Lance, we wouldn't lie to you," she said. "Not now."

"I'm sorry, Roana," I apologised.

"It's alright," she assured.

Our dragons then walked us to the large, centre doorway of the loft building. I looked behind to see the one other Dragon Rider and his Nadder, along with the other independent dragons, all ready to follow us into battle.

"Substance," I said, looking down at my dragon. "You're our Spiritual Leader, our Guardian of Memories. Would you lead our warriors, our tribe, in a prayer to Spirit?"

The dragon gave me a single, pleased nod as she then faced forward, raising her head and began to hum loudly. I raised my head as well, as I closed my eyes and began humming with her, reaching with my heart for the harmony in heaven that our growing, ethereal humming was bringing to Earth. As all the dragons closed their eyes and hummed around us, the entire building, all the troops around us, fell silent for a moment. I cracked my eyes open to see the soldiers now gradually bowing or raising their heads as well, with some of them humming.

As the humming diminished, I opened my eyes again to see Roana, Rökkr, and Substance looking at me . . . as all the other dragons, and even soldiers were seeming to as well. I looked back at Roana for a moment. She just gave me a single nod. It suddenly dawned on me that I was the ranking officer among all present, regardless of service or branch. I now became a leader, in fact as well as in rank.

"We thank you," I found myself saying loudly. "We thank every one of you, for joining us in our hour of need. Know that we will never forget what you do tonight. For the dragons! Fyrir því drekar!"

As everyone around us cheered, or roared, I realized that sometimes you just can't escape destiny. I was an Ýsa, a son of Hiccup. I was meant to undo the damage, the pain, that my great grandfather and even namesake, Asger, had caused. I had been drawn back to rejoin my tribe, take a mate, and bond with a dragon. Now, I was leading the fight to save them all.

I was alive, in a way I had never been before. And if I had to die, there would never be a better, or more fitting night than this.

But somehow, I was determined that I would not be the last Ýsa.

I now swept my left arm forward as Rökkr and Substance took off with my mate and I onboard as our dragon forces followed behind. As I glanced at Roana beside me while we all rose into the night air, I began to hope that my mate was already pregnant, and that at least she, if not I, would survive this battle.

_Spirit, Ýsas, Hiccup,_ I found myself silently praying now, _don't let me be the last of us. I can't be._


	23. Chapter 23

With our forces soon assembled in the air, the midnight journey back to Eyju Nýrra Berk or the 'Isle of New Berk' was now underway. I heard the muffled sounds of two specially rigged, covert troop helicopters behind us. For a brief moment as I looked back, I allowed myself to be awed. Dragon and Outsider, living being and machine . . . they were all flying together in the dim light of a crescent moon, acting as one.

But my God, I realized as I looked forward again . . . I was leading a battle. Me, a once analytical PhD biologist, was really leading a battle—well, with my dragon. I was a different man now however. So much had changed.

We now approached our protected territory and island from the south, aiming for a narrow, fjord-like channel to conceal ourselves from possible detection on Berk for as long as possible. Our scouts and snipers had arrived in place on the north and south mountains near the village—but they had not been able to conduct a sweep of the eastern mountains, and so urged caution in their last radio check-in. New Berk was small, but the island was still a few miles from one end to the other. There was also uncertainty as to whether additional Soviet operatives might be in boats around the island, as a couple of unidentified small craft had apparently been spotted in the vicinity during the day, but fortunately not as the SEAL and MJK units reported coming ashore. Both the platoons and the submarines that inserted them had orders to eliminate any such craft without questions if there were.

As we entered the narrow channel, I could see a couple of remote houses or cabins along the mountainsides and shore of the fjord's eastern or mainland side. These basically marked the boundary of the quarantined wildlife refuge that encircled New Berk, encompassing at least one other island or portion of the mainland in all directions. Fortunately though, the lights in these few houses were out. If anyone was home, helicopters they might have expected; but the mass of large flying things cruising beside and in front of the helicopters would have been difficult to explain. Roana had briefly told me earlier that she and the other rider had just guided our dragons south tight behind this refuge island's ridge of mountains during the previous dawn, sheltered by low clouds and fog as a Coast Ranger rode with her to guide them. Flying north past those few houses now as quietly as possible, I remembered my mate having once told me that our Outside Berkers had been operating a dragon-themed restaurant and gift shop for years in a nearby harbour town. I found myself hoping that shop and eatery had been spreading what could be thought of as an acceptance, even a love for dragons—fantasy or otherwise—as intended.

_I should take Roana there for a date sometime,_ I then silently decided to myself though. Lord knows she and I could use something like that, if we could ever have some free time to ourselves off the island. Who knows, maybe just saying, "Fyrir því drekar," at that restaurant might even get us a free meal.

Flying up the channel now, I also recalled being told that our Dragon Riders had once even watched this channel, but had pulled back to our island as outside civilization encroached, especially in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries. We would still fly it at night sometimes, but this was the first time I had seen it up close, having flown higher and usually out over this southern island and the ocean past here on my few previous trips to and from the south.

Soon, we emerged at the northern end of the channel. Substance and Rökkr then banked and turned our force northwest, flapping their wings harder to pick up speed rapidly as we crossed an open sound. Our own island, with its archipelago of offshore islets and rocks, was in sight as we gained altitude to clear its protective rim of mountains. This was the riskiest and most exposed portion of our approach. Anyone watching from the southeast side of the island could easily see us. I almost braced myself for gunfire, but none came. The Soviets were still evidently expecting the western side of the island to be attacked.

For a moment, I allowed myself a smile of satisfaction. Without help from dragons, it would have taken the Soviets most of a day's climb to even reach the summits of our mountains from the valley to place scouts or monitoring devices. With only a dozen or so of them, having to guard our villagers, dig defensive emplacements and place monitoring devices where they could, as well as probably ransack my house and lab looking for whatever information on my work they could find, which wasn't there anyway—the Soviets were simply stretched too thin. Maintaining their occupation of New Berk into a second night, they were likely even short on sleep by now. It could not be a better time to attack and retake our island.

As we approached the summits of our eastern mountains, I glanced at the special watch on my left wrist that I had been given upon entry into the loft building. The small green light was now flashing . . . the go code. Everyone else was in place and ready.

I then raised my left fist—no need for hand signals this time, it was an all-out attack. Roana and our one other Dragon Rider raised theirs in reply. "Substance," I simply said as I then swept my arm forward while also giving her neck a gentle squeeze with my legs, " . . . go." I also remembered to press the button on the watch in confirmation above the glowing two.

Our force now rose together over the island's eastern rim of mountains as our village finally came into view at the far end of the valley. As we all turned again and lined up for our descent run into the village, Substance barked an order in Dragon, which was echoed by Rökkr, and on through the rows of dragons following us.

"What did she just say?" I quickly said to Roana beside me. The dragons had just broken our customary silence protocol at this point, so I figured I could, too.

"She ordered the dragons to avoid firing around the yellow backpack and setting off the bomb," Roana replied back.

I didn't have time to ask more than that however, as the Night Furies, led by Substance and Rökkr then arced into a screaming attack dive towards our village, followed by the rest of the our force.

"Gods, Spirit be with us," I said out loud as I crouched low against Substance for our assault, the air whipping past me now.

As my dragon and I accelerated downward, I could sense Substance furiously looking ahead for the four guards and that all-important backpack and the bomb it contained. I tried to look for it, too amid the commons dimly lit as usual by torches on surrounding houses. As we continued diving down into the valley, I could begin to make out that the villagers were sleeping en masse outdoors on the commons, apparently not having been permitted back into their homes.

Strangely though, there seemed to be few if any dragons with them. Then, around the edge of my vision, I saw other dragons begin descending from both the north and south mountain ridges where they had been waiting to see us arrive, some perhaps beside special forces snipers with watches like mine.

"Know when to fight, and when not to," I said again out loud. Our knights' credo was already the dragons' wisdom, among all of them.

Less than five seconds had now passed as we were all plunging downwards towards the village. Substance drew her wings in even more, accelerating us ahead of Rökkr and the others as they seemed to fall behind somewhat, out of my sight. Things on the commons were now clearer though as we rapidly approached . . . and there was our objective.

"Substance, there! The guards!" I exclaimed to her, pointing ahead of us.

On the ground ahead of us were four men, now in dark commando garb with submachine guns, looking around them, apparently confused by the whistling sounds in the air our Night Furies were making, coming from all directions around them. In their midst was a large yellow backpack!

I raised my gun, but Substance loudly growled, "No fire! Bomb!"

"Oh yeah, right!" I quickly remembered, lowering my gun to one side again as Substance now braced herself, extending her wings somewhat. We levelled out our trajectory as we approached their position, zooming just a few feet above a blurred ground beneath us. Substance could have been dragging her claws along the ground at that point for all I knew. Down the valley we went, approaching the village and commons way faster than I ever had before. I hunched myself even further down, lowering my head as I saw and heard machine guns starting to fire ahead of us, then feeling periodic sprays of hot bullets whizzing just inches around me.

As I heard and felt a few 'plinks' via my helmet as bullets were deflected off it, as well as dull pokes as my body armour absorbed gunfire, I began to feel splatters of blood blow across my lowered face.

But the blood wasn't mine . . . it was Substance's.

She was raising her head somewhat, even extending her ears and lobes to shield me, taking the gunfire for me. But as the hail of bullets continued, I now felt a slug impact into my right shoulder, just outside of the protective realm of my body armour. The pain began to be searing in that shoulder, but I just didn't have time for it.

Substance now ploughed us straight into the four men, knocking them down like bowling pins on either side of me with her head and wings. I felt her body very briefly jerk underneath me, slowing down. But then she flapped her wings vehemently, powering us both back into the air.

What happened next though, I did not expect. Starting to rise upwards again, she suddenly and violently arched and flipped her neck as she flapped her wings, twisting in the air. First my feet fell out of the stirrups, then I found myself unable to hang onto the saddle as the fingers of my right hand lost their grip on the saddlebars while I held the CAR-15 gun with my left. It was happening so fast I didn't have time to ask Substance what the heck she was doing. With a final snap of her head and neck, she had even managed to slip off the single tether holding us together between my Rider's harness and the saddle.

Losing hold of the saddle, I was then flung briefly through the air, soon landing with a thump on the grassy commons. My knight combat training now took over. I just rolled right to my knees upon landing as I clutched my submachine gun. My left forefinger finger just squeezed the trigger of that gun as I immediately fired level at the four guards while they were still reorienting themselves, being careful to avoid spraying gunfire on the ground where the backpack would likely be, and quickly stopping once all four guards had been hit. It had been a simple warrior's choice—them or me.

Then I noticed the backpack among them was missing . . . gone.

I spun around on my feet as dragon blasts and small arms fire began erupting all around me and villagers began scattering for shelter amid the houses on each side of the commons.

I looked around desperately . . . finally, I saw her!

"_SUBSTANCE!_" I now yelled with all my might.

A wrenching grief swept through me as I saw her flying away to the west, out of the village, carrying the large yellow backpack in her foreclaws. I then noticed a stream of tracer bullets being fired in her direction through the nighttime sky.

"_Not at my dragon!_" I coldly roared as I spun around again, firing without hesitation at another nearby Soviet commando who was shooting at her.

I then saw other dragons swoop in, risking their lives to rescue villagers, especially children, grabbing and flying them out of harm's way as our two special forces helicopters now landed on the eastern edge of the commons with FSK and SEAL troops rapidly deploying out of them.

Much of the enemy and our villagers were all together, which prevented many of the dragons from firing blasts as they otherwise would have. One Zippleback though just dove at two Soviet commandos as they fired their guns. The two-headed, light green dragon simply enveloped both enemy soldiers with its large wings and body, even as both soldiers fired at it. The Zippleback fell down on the ground on top of the men as it stopped them from firing any more rounds, saving countless villagers, even probably the two Soviets as well from fire by our side. Somewhat bloodied, but with its two heads then basically head-bumping each other in self-congratulations, I knew the dragon at least would be alright.

I couldn't see what Rökkr and Roana were doing in the confusion though somewhere overhead. My only thoughts at that instant were for my dragon. I quickly turned back to the sky though amid the chaos of dragon blasts and gunfire around me. "_SUBSTANCE!_" I yelled again, trying to stop her.

But it was no use. She kept right on going, flying as hard and as fast as she could away from our village and out over the sea beyond our valley, with that backpack still clutched beneath her.

Another dragon blast near me knocked me off my feet. I rolled again, trying to look at my dragon as she rounded the edge of the southern mountains and disappeared from sight.

Then there was a bright flash behind the mountains as a huge, almost unearthly explosive blast thumped through the air and briefly shocked the ground beneath my feet.

"Substance . . ." I more quietly began sobbing now, as both NATO commandos and villagers on their own began to surround me. One villager even took the gun I was holding, turning to protect me. Only later did I realize that the helmet I had been given had a small silver colonel's eagle painted on it. Once again, I had been marked, even by my own side.

Rökkr and Roana now landed near me as the dragon blasts and gunfire subsided. The enemy had already apparently surrendered or been killed. This was confirmed as I saw Norwegian and American commandos now roaming freely through the village, on guard and searching for any pockets of resistance. I even saw the surviving enemy now being gathered in a group on their knees with their hands behind their heads. It had been a swift, well-executed operation—a proud moment for Berk, the Norwegians and Americans.

But it was also now the most painful moment I had ever known.

Roana now approached me, seemingly with joyful relief. "Where's . . . ?" her voice trailed off at seeing my tearful eyes looking at her in distress.

"She grabbed the backpack," I whispered hoarsely now in shock, "and she flew off with it. Substance flew off with it . . ." I collapsed in quiet grief against Roana's shoulder.

"Ohh Lance . . ." my mate started tearing up as well as we held each other.

"W-We gotta find her," I then said, trying to pull myself back together. "We gotta find her. She's out there . . . alone."

With tears in her own eyes, Roana looked at me, nodding her head. "Dreki dúnn á sjór! Dragon down at sea!" she then yelled. "Leita atila, NÚNA! Search parties, NOW!"

"Come on, Lance," she then encouraged. But then she hesitated, noting, "You're wounded."

"I'm fine," I assured.

"Raise your arm," she quickly accepted as she just took an ace bandage out of her emergency pack on her waist and wrapped it tightly around my right shoulder and armpit. Securing the end with two clasps, "Let's get out there," she encouraged. "Ran!" she then quickly called out to her doctor ex-boyfriend nearby. "Taktu ábyrgt á læknisfrætilegum þörfum hér, bæti drekar og mönnum!"

Her ex looked back at her and readily nodded, while he was already kneeling to tend to a wounded villager. Beyond him, I could now see a third helicopter with a red cross in a white square on its side landing beside the two others at the eastern edge of the commons as medics, also with red crosses in white squares on their helmets, then jumped out to aid in what had suddenly turned into a relief effort.

With those helicopters, and the soldiers and medics now roaming the commons, the outside world now seemed to be pouring into Berk in full. For the first time, I began to feel responsible for possibly ending this paradise . . . for dragging it into the modern, mechanical, and even violent age I had come from.

What the Dark Robes and the ancient Norse Kings had failed to do a millennium ago was now being done in front of my very eyes. As some of the village houses burned around me, it began to feel like I was watching Berk itself being assimilated . . . lost.

But I didn't have time to ponder our tribe's fate or mourn for it at the moment.

"Rökkr, let's go!" Roana then directed her dragon as she practically dragged me onto Rökkr's saddle with her. He then took off into the air with the two of us, and we headed out over the western edge of our valley and island.

As he flew out over the rocks and crashing surf in the dark, Rökkr fired off periodic small blasts to try and illuminate the seascape beneath us. I now heard and saw one of the troop helicopters and its searchlight joining behind us as well.

"Lower," I requested to Roana and Rökkr, fearing that all we might find could be a wing or a tail, floating on the water.

Rökkr dutifully flew us closer over the surface of the ocean as we skimmed back and forth near the island among alternating mazes of offshore rocks and open water . . . hoping, looking, praying. He even called out to Substance—roaring, almost moaning plaintively.

The longer we went without seeing her, the deeper my heart sank into the pit of my stomach. My dragon . . . I just wanted to find her.

"Please Spirit . . ." I wept as Rökkr made another turn beneath Roana and I.

Suddenly, as Rökkr fired another small blast, we zoomed over a dark mass just a few yards beneath us . . . a mass that stood out because it was at the edge of a tiny patch of sand beach on a small, rocky islet.

"Back!" I said with urgency. "There!" I pointed behind me.

Rökkr pivoted us around again, slamming Roana and I against the saddle. He then slowed, braking in the air to almost a standstill. I just let go of Roana and dove off into the cold water, swimming the final few yards to the beach despite my aching shoulder, still wearing my helmet and vest, to the being I knew was my Substance now.

I scrambled into the shallows as I reached her. Substance's head and front half were on shore, with her back half resting in the water. I didn't know whether she was alive or dead. Having a black hide, I couldn't tell how badly she had been affected by the blast, but at least there was no external bleeding . . . except on the front of her face, where she had taken a good number of bullet hits.

I now felt both anguish and rage over what had been done to her as I strove to maintain control over what I was seeing. All I could do initially was put my arms around Substance, and gently talk to her . . . hoping, praying she could hear me.

"Substance," I whispered with an agonized intensity, touching my face against her bloodied right ear, "I'm here . . . I'm here . . ."

Rökkr quickly landed on the beach near us as Roana jumped off him, firing a distress flare into the air as she did. It then bathed us in a dim, red light as its small parachute deployed, almost hanging over us as the flare marked our location. My mate rushed over and immediately knelt down, placing one of her hands under my dragon's throat while putting the other in front of one of her nostrils.

"She's breathing and has a pulse!" Roana said.

My mate quickly produced a syringe and bottle from the emergency pack on her waist and proceeded to give Substance an injection in her neck.

"This will stimulate her heart and breathing somewhat," Roana noted. "Put your hands on her throat and in front of her nostrils, and keep monitoring her pulse and breathing while I check the rest of her." My mate and I switched places as I now placed my hands where she had. "Let me know if either vital changes," she instructed, "or especially slows down or diminishes from what it is now."

"Got it," I assured as I put myself in full 'work' mode, managing somehow to just think of Substance as a trauma patient for the moment.

Roana then stepped into the shallows amid fortunately light lapping waves as she probed with her fingers along my dragon's abdomen in the water. She betrayed no emotion as she worked, assessing Substance's condition without any instruments, as Berk vets and healers before them had been doing for hundreds of years. I glanced occasionally at my mate as she worked, not daring to say anything extraneous or unnecessary that would disturb her.

We now heard and felt the helicopter that had been following us swoop down over the water near us in response to the flare. A rescue swimmer in a black wetsuit, presumably from the helicopter, soon joined us on the beach beside my dragon.

"Get a vet or medical team here, now!" Roana ordered, turning to him.

"On its way," we were assured, as the diver then radioed in Bokmål for help.

Somehow Substance continued to hang on as a landing craft arrived before long at the beach next to us, and a rescue and medical team proceeded to come ashore and surround her.

"Get her the rest of the way onto the beach," Roana then instructed, as all of us managed to heft Substance a little more up the beach clear of the water. "Now, gently roll her over onto her back, and prepare for surgery. Just carefully fold and watch the wings."

"Surgery? Here?" I asked.

"She's bleeding internally, in several places on her underside," Roana explained as she probed the dragon's abdomen again with her hands now on dry land. "I can feel it on the other side of the hide here. If we can find and stop the bleeding . . . she might just pull through. Team," she then addressed the others around us in English, probably in case there were Americans among them, "I need a couple of you to work on her face while I and others perform abdominal surgery. Dragon physiology is basically the same as that of any large reptile. There's not much difference, except for the joined respiratory and bio-plasma gas systems of Night Furies here that are present in the upper and middle chest, which most of you will not need to worry about. Let's get to it."

Before I knew it, a tent and lights were being erected over us, as Roana was performing surgery on Substance, this time with a surgical mask and gloves on. My own gloved hands were just flying as I passed requested instruments and other items to my mate on pure instinct and adrenaline. I now wore a surgical mask as well, while having forgotten to take my helmet or vest off.

Norwegian and American Navy medics had figured out how to rig up an oxygen mask large enough for a Night Fury to breathe through. This time, we weren't losing the patient yet. Substance's heartbeat on the electronic monitor that had been set up next to her was weak but steady as Roana, now joined by a Norwegian Navy surgeon, worked furiously to locate and sew closed torn organs and ruptured arteries and veins inside of her.

"We're just lucky Night Furies have such thick hides," Roana said aside to me as she worked. "That's what saved her. She must have dropped the bomb just before it exploded, managing to crash land on this beach. Suture—Three-eights, Double Zero needle with Number One thread, please."

After inserting the thread through the needle and passing them both to her, as Roana resumed her work, I glanced at three field medics who were treating Substance's face, head, and the lower side of her neck. I saw them pick a bullet or two out, but I could only hope her hide was thick there, too. What this dragon had done for me, for the entire village, I was now just awed by.

"Let's remove the saddle," one of the medics working on her head then asked.

"Here," I said, turning to release the straps myself.

"Careful," the medic urged as we gently moved the saddle and straps clear of her neck to the side. "What's this other strap?" the woman then asked, looking at it.

"That's her strap of office," I said. "Substance is our Guardian of Memories, our spiritual leader."

The woman gave me a bit of a strange look, but then asked, "You want us to work around that? We can."

"If it needs to come off, the buckle is right here," I pointed at the base of Substance's neck before turning back to assisting Roana again, as the female medic resumed her own work around the rest of Substance's head and neck.

Seeing that Roana was now still quietly working on applying the suture, I then paused to look at that strap of office around my dragon companion's neck. Its leather was pierced with several bullet holes in places and singed by the bomb blast. I just briefly clutched my right, gloved hand around it, silently praying to Spirit for her this time, as she had no doubt prayed in the past for so many others. I vowed would do anything for Substance if she survived.

To me, the battle was only half over as we quietly fought to save my dragon now.

— — — — —

I glanced at the military watch I had been given. Over an hour and a half had passed as the surgical activity around Substance continued in that tent.

"Doctor, the blood pressure is low, now approaching danger levels that you told me to watch for," a med tech reported as she watched the electronic monitors.

"We need Night Fury blood, Type B Positive," Roana called out. "Someone radio the village and ask for Doctor Ran Jorgenson. He speaks Bokmål, but his English is poor. Tell him to collect and send the blood. She then turned to me, noting, "Thank gods for your recent blood work on her and the other Night Furies, Lance."

It was the only time I was able to smile a little. "And tell Doctor Jorgenson," I added aloud, "there is a full list of Night Furies by blood type in the clinic, left file cabinet, second drawer, in a file marked, 'Night Furies dash Blood dash Summary.'"

"Yes sir," one of our team members responded.

"Hopefully Ran can read my English, and let's hope that the Soviets haven't messed up my files," I sighed to Roana, as I then remembered, "Rökkr's Type B Positive, too. Corpsman," I said as I turned, seeing a US Navy Hospital Corpsman nearby among our team, "you can take two, no three pints from the dragon watching us nearby."

I just glanced at Rökkr, who was looking through a flap in the tent that had been rolled up for him to watch as we all worked. Fortunately he gave a nod.

"Sir or Doctor," the enlisted corpsman asked as he nervously looked at Rökkr, "how do I find a vein on him?"

"Look just behind the leading edge of the wings," I replied as I looked at him, "the closer to the root the better, and hold a flashlight underneath to see them. It will be tough to tell arteries from veins, so just carefully stick what looks good to you there. Use a Seven or Ten Gauge Needle though to get through his hide, even there, but avoid going all the way through the vessel or the wing itself. And watch the bags. With their higher blood pressure, they should fill up more quickly than with humans. Take an assistant with you."

"Yes sir," he replied.

I glanced at Roana quickly slipping me a smile of approval as the corpsman then collected his supplies and went around outside the tent with a uniformed Norwegian female combat medic to where Rökkr was looking through.

"Lance," my mate then requested, "could you continue sewing this suture here? It would allow me to move on to the next rupture."

"Got it," I said as I moved in beside Roana and took over sewing what appeared to be a kidney closed.

As I'd glance at him now and then, Rökkr, bless him, dutifully extended his right wing to one side as the medics approached him. He didn't even look at them once as the outsiders nervously checked along the top of his wing, finally picking a vessel, sterilizing the area with a wipe and then sticking Rökkr with what looked like an industrial-sized hypodermic needle attached by plastic tubing to the first bag.

"Thank you, Rökkr," I just said gratefully to him on behalf of both Substance . . . and the medics!

Rökkr just blinked his eyes and gave the slightest of nods, not wanting to disturb the work now being done on him.

Within a few minutes, the first bag of Rökkr's blood was being passed to us, and about twenty minutes later, pint bags of other Night Fury blood began showing up and being passed to us as I saw Dragons and Riders landing and quickly taking off again nearby on the beach. Judging by the drained bags stacking up, we must have gone through well over three gallons of dragon blood during the remainder of the surgery.

Finally though . . . "Closed," Roana announced with deep relief as she completed the final stitch of the last of several sutures along the dragon's abdomen while other medics then moved in to apply sterilized bandaging over it.

Outsiders rushing to finish saving a dragon was a moving sight for me, as I found my emotions returning now with my work ending. But then I quietly teared up with joy, seeing that the monitor next to us was still beeping with Substance's vitals, and the oxygen was still flowing.

"How did we do on the face?" Roana asked, wiping her brow, as the three medics who had been working on Substance's head and neck were now resting themselves from their labours.

"We removed the bullets," one of them replied. "Her face, the hide is fortunately very thick there, as you said. But the eyes . . . we could only remove the bullets and close the wounds." He didn't have to say anything else as we all looked at her eyes, now covered in gauze and bandages.

Tears of sadness now leaked from my own eyes as I realized Substance would almost certainly wake up blind. She had probably been flying blind, even as she was clutching the backpack and throwing me off, trying to save my life.

Love didn't begin to describe what I now felt for this dragon.

"Lance," Roana said, kneeling close beside me, knowing what I was experiencing as I continued to gaze at Substance. "She's through the worst," my mate now continued as a doctor more than anything else. "But we can't move her quite yet. Her internal wounds should be allowed to heal some, at least the sutures sealing up a little, otherwise they will tear open again. It's your turn now though, okay?"

"Me?" I quietly asked, not taking my eyes off Substance though.

"Let's get that shoulder of yours seen to," she suggested. "I'll help you to strip off your top and then just lay down on this gurney. You'll stay right next to Substance. Let us work on you now, alright?"

"It's a bullet," I noted as she first proceeded to unwrap the blood-stained ace bandage.

"I guessed," Roana gently assured. "We'll numb up your shoulder and then hope that bullet isn't lodged too deep."

Soon, my helmet, vest and tunics were off and I was being operated on by Roana under local anaesthetic, as I lay on my left side next to my dragon.

"It's right there . . . amid the muscle," I heard her say as I just looked Substance. "Fortunately no bone or tendon damage."

The bullet had pierced my shoulder and lodged in my upper arm, causing minimal damage. I should have been injured far worse than I was . . . but Substance just hadn't allowed that to happen.

"You'll just have a scar about ten centimetres long here with me having had to search for it," Roana continued as she worked on me. "Sorry, but it'll make you look tough and sexy. Better than a tattoo."

Under normal circumstances I would have smiled. But these weren't normal circumstances.

"We'll save this," she said, briefly holding the bullet in front of my face with tweezers. "It's been closer to you than I have . . . actually _under_ your skin."

I just continued looking at my dragon.

"Lance," my mate said as she then began to sew up my incision, "it'll be okay. She will be okay."

I swallowed quietly.

I felt a pair of lips gently kiss my right cheek before the sewing on my shoulder continued.

— — — — —

More time passed.

With the help of auxiliary generators that kept lights and heat on around us, we kept watch over Substance in that tent as the morning sunlight dawned. Unable to rest myself and all sewn up with a fresh bandage on my shoulder and now dressed in a clean and dry military uniform of Norwegian battle dress or combat fatigues that I had been given—somehow complete with naval Kommmandør epaulets befitting my Colonel's intelligence rank—I just sat up on the sand next to my dragon, watching for any movement or sound from her as she continued to lay basically on her back. Her legs were tucked down along her sides as they would be in flight, and her head was cushioned amid several lifejackets as that jury-rigged and taped oxygen mask remained over her snout.

Time now seemed to slow to a crawl as I just watched over her.

— — — — —

"Lance, rest," Roana encouraged next to me sometime later, having napped for a while herself on an air mattress next to me.

I didn't answer as I just gazed at my dragon. What had happened to Substance, what she had suffered, it was still slowly sinking in with me. I didn't know if I wanted her to wake up to a life without sight now, or let her go off to Spirit, where she could see and more. I just took the strap on her neck into my hand again, clutching it as I now closed my eyes and prayed . . . silently letting it be her choice, and Spirit's.

"Lance, please rest," my mate repeated. "I'll watch her. A whole team of us will. I will wake you the moment she starts stirring, promise."

"Alright," I accepted, knowing that I had now done all I could for Substance.

I looked around as two other medics were watching her heart and respiratory monitors, with others resting on air mattresses inside the tent. Our military landing craft was still visible right outside. Even Rökkr was watching us through that rolled up flap in the side of the tent.

I just laid down now where I was on the sand and closed my eyes. I wanted to keep a hand against Substance anyway. I felt Roana gently raise my head and tuck a lifejacket under it as a pillow for me. I then felt that pair of lips kiss my right temple again as I just watched my dragon, before slowly allowing my eyes to close and finally permitting sleep to overtake me.

— — — — —

A while later, I felt movement through my right hand as it lay almost tucked underneath Substance. There was now a stirring of a large mass against it. I also was hearing an unmistakable deep murmuring.

"Lance," I heard. But my eyes were already opening, and I was moving to sit up.

"Substance . . ." I gently said as I looked at her, moving closer to her head and caressing it.

My dragon now took a deep breath, seeming to come to. Her mouth opened slightly amid the jury-rigged oxygen mask and she uttered a soft moan.

I turned and glanced at Roana as she and others were making checks on Substance and watching her monitors, but my mate simply shrugged. It was just a moan.

"Substance," I proceeded to assure, "we made it. We both made it. You're on a beach now, just off Berk, in a surgical tent. You saved the village," I sniffed with a slight smile. "You saved us all."

I could see her mouth now bend into a slight smile as she gently moaned some more.

"It'll be okay," I just encouraged as I leaned close and stroked her head. "It'll be okay."

I would make it okay for my dragon now. I just would.

"Doctor," a medic now asked us entering the tent, "can we move the dragon? A storm is expected soon. It is a passing front, but we are exposed on this low beach. If we could at least get her to a safer cove or harbour on the landing craft . . ."

"Let's rig up the air mattress we discussed, and get her onto that craft," Roana agreed.

Soon, we were all carefully lifting Substance a little at a time as what I can only describe as a hover-mattress was moved under her. Then, once she was fully on it, it was inflated, making a fair amount of noise, and she was carefully floated out of the tent on a cushion of air and onto the nearby landing craft, as her oxygen and I.V. fluids were moved with her. The weather was already turning, and a gentle rain was now falling on her. Fortunately someone handed me an umbrella to keep her head dry as we moved her.

I could sense this might be a long, slow recovery for Substance . . . that she might not be able to even return home to our village all that quickly. The important thing though was that she was alive, and that I was with her. Nothing else seemed to matter right now as Substance was settled under another tent erected across the landing craft's well deck, while the beach tent was quickly broken down and everything, even my dragon's saddle, was moved onto that craft.

"Rökkr, Lance, just settle next to Substance," Roana encouraged while she somehow still had the alertness and stamina to be coordinating the movement and resettling of Substance, and seemingly everything else around us.

Part of me smiled as I watched my mate with my haze-filled, half-open eyes. I had so married, or mated with, the right woman this time. Man had I got that right! I silently vowed never to forget it, or take her for granted. One glance at my dragon though was all it took for my smile to fade and leave me once more.

I then just sat against the side of Substance's head on the air mattress as Rökkr settled himself against her other side, while we both watched everything happening around us for a moment. All of it seemed so unreal. The landing craft's diesel engines jarred me back though as they finally roared to life while the vessel then backed away from the beach, its bow ramp raising and closing in front of us as the other medics huddled on the rain-slickened well deck amid their gear.

Substance, I, and everyone else were now carried off across the sea to who knows where aboard that landing craft.

Amid the mechanical noise and the crowding onboard, it just hit me once more . . . I was back in the Twentieth Century, surrounded by steel and machinery again instead of simple wood and cloth. But so were our dragons. Gods what had I caused here, even helped to happen?

But somehow, even though she was unconscious once more, I found Substance drawing my attention back on her. I couldn't help shedding some more tears of profound pain, but also unfathomable love for my dragon as my head lay against Substance and my right arm was draped across her neck. My hand gently stroked the black, leathery hide over her large throat, one of Substance's favourite places to be rubbed or itched, before I reached for that battle-scarred strap of hers again.

_Gods, Spirit, I have another request for you . . ._ I pleaded in my mind as my consciousness faded once more.


	24. Chapter 24

I finally awoke again, still lying against the relatively uninjured side of Substance's neck and head, as the landing craft we were on bumped against something. I looked forward as the grey bow ramp lowered once more, revealing a familiar sloping boat ramp and building beyond it.

"We're at our outside lifeboat station," Roana informed me, kneeling down next to me and seeing I was awake. "We'll be able to continue nursing Substance inside the boathouse here, for as long as it takes."

Slowly, we all pushed Substance and the not very quiet air mattress on which she was resting off the landing craft, up the boat ramp and into the station's boathouse. This would now be home to her until she was able to return to our village. Fortunately, we were able to stretch the air hoses so that the mattress' compressor was outside the boathouse, and were able to shut the mattress' vents so it neither floated on a cushion of air nor any longer made noise itself, which allowed us to turn the compressor off for periods of time.

I helped as much as anyone did, but I was on autopilot—going through motions, doing without thinking. I felt empty, drained, as we now settled Substance into the modern space with its immaculate, smooth grey concrete floor and its glass and wood walls, even though there were some missing panes of glass that were covered with plywood for the moment, and some bullet holes in the wooden walls . . . testaments to what had happened here, too. I also glanced at the red-painted steel beams supporting both the walls and the peaked roof overhead, as well as the bright incandescent lights that hung from the rafters. I saw Roana break off to confer with a Norwegian police officer . . . one of our Outside Berkers I was guessing.

We had ostensibly won, but it didn't feel like a victory. As I looked at Substance laying there with bandages across her face, I.V. drips feeding into her, and stitches with more bandaging running the length of her abdomen, I wondered at the cost, the toll of it all. Substance was a symbol of all that had happened. She was a dragon, a being, of peace. And yet except for those who had died in this battle, she had seemed to suffer the worst of any of us, much like Berk's innocence and blissful isolation.

"Well," Roana noted, now interrupting my thoughts as she came back to me, "we have an air-tight security cordon around us here, with several roadblocks along the approach road. This station is out of service for as long as we need it. Its use in supporting the military effort around that fake nuclear submarine incident is the cover story for now. The Norwegians are even using it as a full mobilization and training exercise. But at least you'll be able to enjoy TV again while we're here if you like," she added brightly. "They even have the BBC from Britain on cable."

"I don't think so," I quietly said, looking at Substance again.

"Lance, we've made it," my mate encouraged, kneeling down and putting an arm around me. "We're okay now."

"Just barely," I replied.

Roana now just hugged me from the side, giving me a kiss. "Why don't you rest some more with Substance," she then suggested. "Nothing would soothe her more than just feeling your presence. I'll get Rökkr to curl up against her, too . . . make this almost like home."

"Thanks . . . fine," I absent-mindedly replied, looking through the floor-to-ceiling windows in places around this garage-like space and seeing the rain and wind now beat against them from the outside. With the boathouse doors closed, I could hardly hear any of it though. I just grabbed a spare lifejacket that had been brought in with us and laid myself down on the air mattress beside Substance, soon fading off to sleep again. After fighting, and then keeping watch over my dragon, I was that tired, even though it was midday.

— — — — —

"Lance, wake up . . . a delegation from the village is here," I heard from Roana sometime later.

"Wh-When are you resting?" were the first words out of my mouth as I came to, before I stretched and took a big yawn.

"Yikes," she said, "you're still wearing that retainer in your mouth. Let's take that out right now," she decided as she gently removed it, with the suicide capsule it contained still intact.

I glanced off to the side to see that the rain had now abated, and there were streaks of sun amid the clouds. It was perhaps only some three or four hours later, but it felt like a whole different day.

As Roana backed off to one side having removed my retainer and I sat up, I noticed a number of Dragons and Riders, along with several independent dragons as well, all looking at Substance and I.

"Þakka þér fyrir áhyggjum þínum. Thank you for your concern," I said. "Ek er fínn. I am fine. Substance, hún vertur . . . í lagi. Substance will be okay," I then hesitantly assured, almost just deciding it would be so.

"Lance, that's not why they're here," my mate responded.

"What's going on?" I wondered as they all now bowed their heads in my direction.

"Substance saved our village by what she did," Roana continued. "And you are credited with killing five of the enemy, more than any of the rest of us."

"I couldn't let them hurt Substance," I said, looking down.

"I know," she assured. "But what you both did makes you and Substance the bravest and most courageous among us, in generations now. You both saved us . . . you are both our leaders."

I just looked at Roana. She simply nodded to me.

She then rose, walking towards a Dragon Rider as he handed her a heavy bearskin cloak with two large bronze badges on it—the cloak I had seen Roald wearing.

At first I shook my head. "I am new among you," I said.

"It has been decided," my mate gently countered. "It is a tradition. It's how Hiccup came to lead us. Whenever we find ourselves in exceptional times or circumstances, those who save us, lead us. You are Chief now, and Substance is Guardian beside you, both Great and still of Memories . . . the first since Toothless."

"Prophesy?" I quietly asked aside, just to her.

"No," she replied, standing near me with the cloak as I still sat on the floor next to my dragon. "We decided this ourselves. But what if it was?" she then posed. "After what they've suffered, our people could use a miracle or inspiring prophesy coming true right now—a fulfillment of history. They're also scared of the outside that is among them. They need someone who has been there, who can help them deal with it all."

"Were you involved?" I wondered.

"No, I was here for the most part, caring for you two," she answered as she knelt down beside me. "I did go back to the village on Rökkr briefly while you and Substance were sleeping to check on wounded dragons and livestock though, which is when these villagers approached me with the decision of our village assembly or 'ting' that was held this morning, and asked to come here with me. But I am proud . . . so very proud of you two," she added, almost breaking down in tears.

"But Roana . . ." I tried to object again anyway.

"You can still choose," my mate decided to admit, almost reluctantly. "You both can."

I sat for a second, looking down and thinking. This was great-grandfather Asger's fondest dream . . . but it wasn't mine. I glanced at Substance though. If she was awake and hearing us, which I suspected she was, she wasn't showing it. But when I looked at her, the only things that came to mind were two words. Normally they would seem to be opposites, but now they felt one and the same . . . duty, and love.

I then rose to my feet as Roana rose with me. While remembering that Frelsari had declined this honour and responsibility years ago after the battle with the Nazis . . . I could not see an acceptable reason to myself; especially as that same Night Fury, along with his companion, Helga, were present in the boathouse now, both looking at me.

I silently looked at Roana one more time. She just looked back at me as she held the cloak ready. I then looked down and took a deep breath.

"Fyrir því drekar," I said as I now faced the visiting delegation from the village.

I noticed every outsider soldier, police officer and uniformed lifeboatman around us snap to attention and salute as Roana now moved behind me and draped the heavy cloak about my shoulders. I even noticed a few camera flashes quietly going off around us once more. Finally, my mate came around in front of me, attaching the chain between the two bronze badges.

As she did, I found myself regretting that this investiture wasn't being done back in the village for all to see. _Still an outsider,_ I sighed silently to myself. It made me recall from my studies of history though how Constantine had been first hailed as Emperor of the Roman Empire while he was in Eboracum of Britannia Inferior, now York, England . . . far from Rome. The territories, both protected and ancestral, of Berk were infinitesimally smaller than the empire Constantine had been chosen to run, but I nonetheless now felt a certain kinship with him.

Roana tearfully smiled at me, just placing her hands gently against my chest after she had attached the chain. I so much wanted to kiss and hold right then . . . but that would have to wait for now.

"You should say something," she quietly encouraged.

"You're pulling an 'Astrid' on me," I gently smiled.

Roana looked aside, trying mightily to keep from laughing as she continued bracing her hands against me. I just took her into my arms now anyway, holding her tightly. We quietly shared an incredibly deep moment of emotion together. I was still human . . . and besides, I was chief. Who was going to stop me or tell me no?

"Lance," she finally managed to quietly say. I pulled my head back a little as we looked at each other.

"I can't do this without you," I replied.

"I'm with you," she assured, before moving to my side as I faced the village delegation.

"Ek er heitur. I am honoured," I slowly said to the village delegation, and everyone else around me, as more flash pictures were taken, before looking at Roana beside me. She nodded as I then continued just in English, while she began translating into Norse for me. "I do not wish to be trapped by the past, or by my family's past," I said.

"Ek vil ekki at vera fastur í fortítinni, eta met því at fortít fjölskyldu minnar," she echoed.

"But I want to honour and continue it as well."

"En ek vil at heitra og halda áfram þat eins og heilbrigtur."

"I still have much to learn, and I want always to understand."

"Ek hef enn mikit at læra, og ek vil alltaf at skilja."

"I believe in listening, supporting, and helping more than anything else."

"Ek trúi á hlustun, stutningi, og hjálpa meira en nokkut annat."

"But I accept your decision," I said, pausing again, " . . . and I will do the best I can."

"En ek taka ákvörtun þína, og ek mun gera þat besta sem ek get."

The delegation then bowed towards me again as I bowed in kind towards them.

"There are duties that need to be performed," Roana now noted to me, "starting with funerals."

"But . . ." I began to say.

"Substance is in no shape to lead or help right now," she replied. "You will have to lead them. I, and Rökkr, too, will help."

"I won't have Substance left alone though," I decided.

"Frelsari and Helga have already requested the honour of providing her with care and company first, before others will take shifts behind them as needed," my mate assured. "Substance will not be left alone here for a moment."

"Just make sure she has a supply of salmon when she's ready for it," I asked.

"Everything from fillets down to pâté," Roana assured.

I knelt down beside Substance's head, wearing my cloak of office now. "Feel this?" I gently said to her, brushing the cloak against some hide of her otherwise bandaged head.

Substance gently murmured.

"You did it, companion," I said. "You made me who I am now."

"Nnnnnooo . . ." she almost whispered. "Yyyoouuu diiiiid."

I smiled as I stroked her. "I have to go to work now," I sighed, "honour those of ours who have died. Stand in for you."

"Easssyy," she whispered. "Jussst hummm."

I laughed with a tear in my eye as I embraced my dragon's head warmly. "I love you, Substance . . . I love you."

"I knowww," she slowly said. "Lllovvve yyouu. Yyouu lllovve tribe, too."

"I do," I assured. "I'd better go. Dragons and people are waiting here. But Frelsari and Helga will keep you company for now. They'll give you anything you want, okay?"

"Goooodd ffrriennndss," she said.

"I'm glad," I said, giving the side of her face a final nudge and kiss with mine. "Rest easy. I'll see you later, Substance."

My dragon just seemed to sigh deeply with contentment now as I rose up and reluctantly parted from her. I could barely contain the tears in my eyes though as I looked at Substance. I felt Roana now move close beside me.

I just turned to my mate and held her again. "I want to be here, for her healing," I whispered in Roana's ear.

"You will," she assured as she held me tightly, too. "Everyone else needs you as well though. You're the most wanted guy in town now."

"Just help me pace myself," I asked, looking almost regretfully at her.

"I gotcha," she smiled. "Rökkr, I, and even Substance will help. Let's go, Chief."

"Don't call me that . . . please?" I requested.

"Would you prefer 'Colonel' then?" she quipped.

I just gave her an annoyed look.

"You'll get used to it," she assured.

"I'd better change," I sighed, looking down at the Norwegian battle dress uniform I was still wearing.

"Your village clothes have dried some, but they're anything but clean," my mate cautioned.

"I don't think I have a choice," I noted. "It just wouldn't be appropriate for me to be landing back in the village as chief wearing this uniform. But I am gonna miss the feel of wearing these outsider clothes again."

"Keep your uniform undershirt on," she encouraged, "the tunics won't feel so bad that way."

I kissed Roana.

Soon I looked like a villager once more, rather than a Norwegian special forces officer, as we both climbed on Rökkr for the trip back to the village. While Frelsari and Helga took our places beside Substance; Roana, Rökkr and I then emerged outside onto the station's boat ramp as the other Dragons and Riders, as well as independent dragons, formed an honour guard escort around us.

I closed my eyes in prayer as Rökkr took off with Roana and I into the air . . . praying to God, Spirit, the Norse gods of legend, whomever would listen and help me do this new job.

— — — — —

After the familiar short flight, we were descending over our island. I saw a fairly heavy presence of light naval craft in the open waters surrounding our island, while in the valley, homes were already being patched up from the battle, and the few badly damaged ones were quickly being leveled for a fresh start. The village was swarming with more activity than I had ever seen. I noticed outside troops were still present, as were three military helicopters—two Norwegian and one American—that were parked in the valley just above our village.

"Looks like a full house," I sighed to Roana in front of me.

"You're ready for it," she assured me as Rökkr set us down on the village commons while our entourage landed with us.

Never having been saluted, let alone recognized, for my intelligence ranks in the past, it almost unnerved me that every single person and dragon in the village now stopped what they were doing and faced me, while every outsider commando smartly lined up with their squads, or whomever was available, and came to attention.

"Now I see why presidents and prime ministers are reluctant to visit disaster areas," I quietly sighed to Roana. "Everything comes to a halt."

"You aren't just you anymore," Roana almost sharply whispered to me, "and this isn't just for you either. You are a symbol to our tribe now. The respect they show you is for all of us, including for every single dragon and person who has died here, both in this battle and in ages past."

I simply nodded, taking a deep breath now and stepping into my role as leader, and symbol, as I stepped down upon the ground.

"þakka þér. Thank you," I said clearly to everyone. Then I paused, figuring I should make my first words back in the village count for something.

"Berk has come through likely the worst crisis we have ever known. Berk hefur komit í gegnum líklega verstu kreppu sem vit höfum nokkru sinni þekkt," I finally continued, composing my thoughts in English before translating them myself into Norse. "Some of us have sacrificed—we will honour them shortly. Sum okkar hafa fórnat—munum heitra þá innan skamms. But the rest of us have survived. En restin af okkur hafa lifat. Berk has survived. Berk hefur lifat af. The best way we can honour our fallen is to live, even thrive. Besta leitin til at vit getum heitur fallit okkar er at lifa, jafnvel þrífast. Together, you and I will do just that. Saman, þú og ek mun gera einmitt þetta. Fyrir því drekar!" I concluded with emphasis as I held my left fist high.

The crowd around me not only cheered, but some of them just surged forward to embrace me for giving them hope after they had survived hell itself. Even some of the dragons pressed amid the growing circle of villagers around me to nudge against me.

I didn't feel like a saint, and certainly not a saviour . . . but these people and dragons needed something. Gods, after what they had been through, they deserved it. They were looking to me now to give it to them, and I simply didn't have it in my heart to disappoint them. So I embraced becoming their chief as I embraced as many of them as I could.

As I looked into each human's or dragon's tearful eyes as they looked at me, I couldn't help shedding some tears myself. I was bonding now, with the entire village . . . making a pledge, a sacred vow with each villager that I would never break.

After seemingly embracing every man, woman, child and dragon in the village . . . one villager chose to patiently wait for the others to finish with me. I knelt down, seeing this one villager finally approach me.

"Ek veit ekki einu sinni hvat ég á at hringja í þig. I don't even know what to call you," I said as I extended my arms towards him.

It was my friend, the young Night Fury who had played soccer with me, and who had convinced me to leave for the outside after the initial attack on our village. He now surged forward into my arms as I held him tightly.

Roana gently grunted something in Dragon to him as she also knelt down next to us. The young dragon grunted back while still nudging against me.

"He's alone now," my mate conveyed. "Despite her age, he says his aunt fought as bravely as any of us, resisting the initial assault, as she sent him away with you and Substance."

I closed my eyes as I touched my face against the top of his head.

"Þú ert ekki einn. You are not alone," I assured him. "Þú ert Ýsa nú, jafnvel mitt samþykkt sonur. You are Ýsa now, even my adopted son. Can I do that?" I asked Roana beside me.

My mate just nodded at me with a tearful smile.

I then nudged my dragon son nose-to-nose . . . to seal the deal, and the bond.

"Vit erum at fara at spila fullt af fótbolta. We are going to play lots of soccer," I sniffed as I held the young Night Fury tightly.

"Lance, it looks like both Brigader Husa and General Thorndyke are here to meet with you," Roana then noted, looking beyond us as she rose to her feet again, "and then we should probably get to the funerals."

"Sonur, Son," I said to the young Night Fury as I now stood up again as well, "þú standa bara hjá mér núna, í lagi? You just stick with me now, okay?"

My new dragon son then nodded with such joy in his eyes as he then turned to stand and face the brigader and general beside me, coming up to just below my waist as I now kept my left hand on him. The two men were walking across the grassy commons toward me, both of them dressed in field combat fatigues.

"General, Brigader," I said, greeting them and extending my right hand to each of them in turn.

"Congratulations on your appointment, Chief," Thorndyke replied. "NATO naturally looks forward to a long and productive relationship with you, and the tribe under your leadership."

"As does Norway," Brigader Hyse added as I shook his hand.

"I can't thank you both, or your forces and nations enough," I said diplomatically as well, "amid this sad but successful outcome for us."

"Here's the retainer, General," Roana chimed in as she offered it back to Thorndyke. "We didn't need it."

"We think you should keep it," Thorndyke graciously replied. "We would prefer actually that you did, in case it ever is needed," he added.

Roana just compliantly tucked it back into a pouch of hers.

"If you don't mind," Brigader Hyse now said, "we are going to keep the submarine exercise going for a couple more days. It will allow us to sweep for any other Soviet operatives that may be in the area, even through police roadblocks and checks on land."

"While you're here in force then," I formally requested, "could you remove that one beach on our island's southern flank, where trespassers tend to land? It would make life a lot easier for us, and eliminate one avenue for invasion."

"I will assign a construction battalion to its removal immediately," the brigader assured.

"What other help do you need?" General Thorndyke then asked.

"I am just getting on the job here myself," I sighed, "and haven't had a chance to tally up our requirements yet. Right now though, I'm told we need to cremate our dead, and that I need to be leading that."

"We would be honored if you would allow our forces here to participate, and pay our respects, too," Thorndyke replied. "We have several dead of our own as well. While most had families on the outside we are already transferring their remains to, I've been informed that one SEAL member was protected by one of your dragons during the fight who laid itself around him as he lay wounded on the ground. His last request to the medic and the chaplain who reached him was to be buried here. He has no close living family."

"He does now," I said. "We, this village, are his family . . . especially that dragon."

— — — — —

The Nighmare who had protected him during his last moments of life now bore Chief Petty Officer Arland Garrison, draped in an American flag, on the dragon's back to the ceremonial area at the foot of our village, accompanied by an honour guard of Dragons and Riders, Norwegian FSK and MJK special forces soldiers, and fellow US Navy SEAL members.

No one had practiced this, but dragon and human processed in almost perfect synchronisation as they turned to the left together in the ceremonial area and came to a halt while the rest of the village had gathered to respectfully watch. Even the five surviving captured Soviet Prisoners of War, or POWs, had requested to pay their respects as fellow soldiers through their senior surviving officer, and I, with the agreement of both the general and the brigader, had allowed it.

The honour guard gently removed the gurney bearing the Chief's body from the Nightmare's back, and laid it on the hallowed ground of our ceremonial area where generations of human and dragon Berkers had lain before him. The dragon then moved to the left as the honour guard took up positions around the remains.

"Even though he spent less than ten minutes of his life in our village," I began saying in English as Roana translated into Norse beside me while Rökkr and my new dragon son stood beside us both, "Chief Arland Garrison is one of us. He is a full Berker, and we are proud . . . so very proud . . . to call him our own.

"That he would lay down his life for a tribe, a village, a people, and beings he did not even know existed until a few hours before he fought for us," I continued, "speaks to the best qualities present among the SEALs, the US Navy, the United States of America, and the universal humanity, and good, we all aspire to. I've been told that Chief Garrison was lucky enough to have met the dragon who protected him, before the battle. Like I was when I first met dragons here, the Chief was first shocked and amazed, then he was curious. He wanted to talk with, and touch the dragon, to assure himself that the dragon was real. My mate, Roana, was fortunately close by, and translated between them. I'm told that by the end of their brief conversation, Chief Garrison admired the Nightmare as a real warrior—practically a Navy SEAL. The Nightmare, too, took a liking to Chief Garrison, paying him the compliment and honour of calling him, 'dragon'. I am further told that during the flight here into battle, the Nightmare dropped back, and flew beside Chief Garrison's helicopter, already keeping an eye on him. When they all landed at our village, the dragon laid down the first protective fire around Garrison's unit as they disembarked from their helicopter, and from that moment on, the dragon and the Chief were inseparable on the ground as they fought, side by side.

"I'm sure," I noted as my voice quivered a little, "that if he had survived, Chief Garrison would have wanted to keep visiting his dragon friend and the rest of us here over time, probably even retire here from the Navy. And we would have welcomed him. We welcome him now anyway, actually. Before we lay Chief Garrison to rest, I'm told that the Nightmare, who has taken the name Garrison now himself, wishes to proclaim their bond as human and dragon companions."

I paused as Roana, Rökkr and I turned. The Nightmare, Garrison, gently nudged his chosen human companion's flag draped head with the tip of his snout, holding it there against him for a moment as we all watched in silence. The dragon then slowly backed away, keeping his gaze on his fallen companion.

"Dragon Garrison," General Thorndyke now said as he joined beside Roana, our dragons, and myself, "on behalf of the United States of America, the United States Navy, and the US Navy SEALs, I wish to present you with an honorary enlistment in the United States Navy, and an honorary appointment to Chief Garrison's SEAL platoon, who have adopted the nickname of 'The Fighting Dragons' with you as their mascot."

Chief Garrison's SEAL platoon cheered at that pronouncement as Thorndyke handed framed certificates of these proclamations to me, which I accepted while briefly standing next to the dragon on his behalf. Living in the caves as he did, the Nightmare didn't exactly have a place to display these proclamations, but the village would figure out something.

"Finally," Thorndyke then said as he stepped closer to the Nightmare with a uniformed aide at his side, who was also in combat fatigues, "it is an honor to present you, as his closest family member, with the final decorations Chief Garrison has earned . . . the Navy Expeditionary Medal, the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal, and the Purple Heart."

The dragon now lowered his head as both General Thorndyke and his aide stretched and attached a broad, dark blue ribbon around his neck with the three medals on it. The general and the aide then stepped back as the Nightmare nodded in salute, and the two uniformed officers saluted back.

Even though there were tears in my eyes, I had to smile. We now had a Berk dragon in the United States Navy, even if it was unofficial, and classified. That dragon was now an honoured warrior, even an ambassador among us. I hoped this would not be the last time he would see the SEAL platoon he was now attached to, and adopted by—in fact I would see to it that it was not.

Still, we had a sad duty to perform for Chief Garrison now, in accordance with the traditions of his newly adopted home.

"We now send our fallen brother, Arland Garrison, to Asgard . . . Heaven," I said then glancing nervously at Roana.

This part had been a delicate compromise. The Navy Chief was ostensibly a Roman Catholic, the institution which had once been a main part of the force that had driven our ancestors to where we now lived. The Navy chaplain was also Roman Catholic and had requested to perform at least a minimal funeral mass for the Chief. However even the chaplain admitted that the Chief had requested to be buried here in Berk, as a Berker. There was also a lingering animosity, especially among older Berkers, towards what they still termed, "Myrkri Skikkjur úr Róm," or, "The Dark Robes from Rome." On the other side, when the chaplain and Garrison's platoon commander inquired about Berk funerary customs, they told Roana and I that the platoon did not want the Chief's ashes picked up and tossed the way we normally did. The chaplain even initially objected to cremation, but when presented with the fact that not a single Berker had ever been physically buried on this island in over 900 years, along with an offer to say a prayer, he accepted. It was a balancing act I could only pray would work, for all of us.

Now at the ceremony, I turned to the chaplain and nodded.

"We are here, united in remembrance of Chief Arland Garrison," the chaplain began, wearing a purple stole around his shoulders over his combat fatigues while Roana translated again. "But that's what death can do—unite the living, even erstwhile enemies. That is what I believe Chief Garrison wanted in choosing to become one of you, and to be laid to rest here. I realize that one of my kind, a number of them really, caused you to flee to this island almost a thousand years ago and hide. I can only apologize and ask your forgiveness for that, which may be hard to do, given all the time that has passed. But I thank both your leaders, and all of you, for allowing me to now say this prayer for Arland. Let us pray. Patris, in spe certissima resurrectionis ad vitam aeternam per Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum," he then began in Latin, reading from his prayer book.

While I instinctively bowed my head, along with most all the rest of the Outsiders, none of the Berkers did, not even Roana, as they looked almost coldly at what they still regarded as an ancient nemesis now praying among them. I kept an eye cracked open, observing all this, almost beginning to pray for an entirely different reason.

But then, Rökkr stepped from beside us, moving to stand next to the chaplain. Nervously, the chaplain paused in reading his liturgy, looking at our dragon. Rökkr though just nodded at him and glanced at the book, seeming to invite him to continue. The chaplain resumed reading his prayer in Latin as our dragon beside him, fulfilling his mate's role as Guardian of Memories, then stretched his head skyward and began a low, resonant hum.

Other dragons in the crowd, and then human villagers, picked up that hum. Rökkr then glanced across at the assembled soldiers, gesturing with his head at the chaplain reading from his book. The Catholics among the soldiers now joined in saying the standard prayer that the chaplain was reading. The two forms of prayer began intermingling, even weaving together.

Roana now took my hand, glancing warmly at me before turning her head skyward, joining in the humming. I recognized the prayer the chaplain was saying as a Latin version of basically the same funerary prayer that Anglicans and Episcopalians used as well.

"The Lord make his face to shine upon him and be gracious to him," I now said in English in time with the chaplain as I bowed my head and closed my eyes. It was the form of prayer I had known my entire life. I figured the village had chosen me as Chief, knowing I had grown up as an Outsider. So I wasn't going to even try to hide that now. "The Lord lift up his countenance upon him and give him peace," I concluded with a growing sense of peace as well. "In the name of the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit, amen."

The chaplain closed his book after concluding his prayer as Rökkr just looked at him. The man now appeared to be just spellbound as our Night Fury extended a wing of welcome and inclusion around him, and turned with him to witness the final phase of Chief Garrison's funeral.

A dragon had made peace between our tribe and an enemy of almost a thousand years, with the simplest of gestures and acts. It was something I now hoped would never be forgotten.

Chief Garrison's SEAL platoon gathered around his dragon companion, as the Nightmare breathed a sustained, intense flame over his companion's remains, until they were white ash. Glancing at his Navy family and brethren next to him, per our compromise, the dragon alone then blew on his companion's ashes, scattering them to the winds and over the edge of the cliff above the sea, as was our way.

Seeing a dragon and his outsider comrades bonded so closely together was a miracle to behold as they all moved to one side of the ceremonial area. However, Chief Garrison's was but the first of a number of funerals we had to conduct through the remainder of the evening, and into the night.

— — — — —

We then honoured Chief Roald, and Árvekni, our Great Guardian, together. Neither one of them had had their own families, having devoted their lives to the village and its wellbeing, both having been chosen after Frelsari had declined while they were young, and single. While Chief Roald was wrapped in a traditional crimson Berker blanket, Árvekni's body bore the scars of the initial battle for all to see. His head however, was draped by a large blanket. I was told he had taken a grenade there. At least it had killed him instantly. He went out as the protective warrior he always had been though, saving at least a dozen villagers who had been shielded behind him.

I would miss that dragon's glaring stares at me as I looked at that blanket covering his head, while both he and Roald were rolled on a wooden platform together into our ceremonial area by villagers.

"About our fallen leaders, my predecessors," I began saying from my heart, without a break from the previous funeral, "what can I say?" I then broke from beside Roana, walking over in front of Árvekni's bullet and blast-scarred head. "Árvekni," I said, kneeling down in front of him, "you are my dragon companion, too. You loved me . . . in a _really_ hard core way," I sniffed with a smile, even a slight laugh. "I see that now. I just wish I had seen it before."

I then nudged the dragon on his bloodied snout with my face in the dragon way. He and I were companions now. I was sure Substance would approve. "Keep guiding me, companion," I said as I looked at Árvekni's shrouded head. "And don't stop being hard core on me when I need it.

"And Chief," I then said, turning towards Roald's wrapped body while still on my knees, "I'll need your help, too. You've spent your entire life here. I haven't been here three months, and yet I'm taking over for you. So if you're thinking of just enjoying an eternal holiday up there in Asgard from all you used to do down here . . . have pity on me. Come visit, and help me out at least a little, okay?"

The crowd gently laughed once Roana finished translating what I had been saying.

"We don't know how much we can miss someone," I said to everyone assembled, standing up in front of both Árvekni and Roald again, "until they're gone. Not long before this battle, Árvekni had even wanted to talk with me sometime . . . offering me a guidance session perhaps. My mate, Roana, told me that he liked to speak one-to-one with all Dragon Riders at least once. He and I never had that session. But I hope to hear it from him, and to hear him, over the time to come."

As the entire village knew both these fallen elders far better than I did, I then invited them forward, saying, "Is there anyone else who would like to say something . . . for them, or even to them?"

There was just silence now. The other villagers seemed to feel uncomfortable at being invited to speak before the rest of the village. Apparently sharing reminiscences at funerals wasn't done here, except by the elder leading them, and even then not in some time with the funerals that Substance had been leading. Roana looked at me, seeming to encourage me to just continue with the ceremony.

But I wasn't satisfied.

"Together," I continued, "we are the only family these two have ever had, at least as adults. Love is supposed to be important here. Well, part of love is sharing, taking risks with others. If you love Roald and Árvekni . . . just say farewell to them now," I sniffed. "Say something to, or for, them . . . please."

Slowly, one Nightmare stepped forward. "'I long wanted to bond with Árvekni,'" she grunted as Roana translated for me. "'I was too scared to myself. I always hoped he would ask. He looked at me, he would talk with me, he would let down his fierce outer guard at times. But he never asked, and neither did I . . . so it never happened.'"

I moved to embrace this Nightmare's tooth and spike-filled head myself as the dragon moaned with regret now.

"Please stay beside us," I quietly said to her as Roana translated for me. "You are his family now."

As I kept my arm extended supportively across the Nightmare's neck, an old friend of Roald's then stepped forward and talked briefly about drinking mead together and enjoying simple times. A few more dragons and people also bravely stepped forward, each painting their own impressions of Árvekni and Roald that the rest of us had likely never known before, but now wished we had.

Finally, it was time to send them on their way to Asgard.

"Let's do this together," I suggested, inviting both the Nightmare and as many other dragons to gather around Árvekni and Roald as could fit. A dragon the size of Árvekni would require a lot of flames to reduce his body to ashes anyway.

"One," I counted as Roana translated again, " . . . two . . . three. Fire."

What must have been about a dozen dragons of various breeds now all breathed fire together upon Roald and Árvekni's bodies. It was a great, and fitting, bonfire for our two leaders, and a different kind of funeral than Berk had apparently known before. Both humans and dragons thanked and complimented me as the flames eventually died down and we all moved in, as was our custom, to blow and toss their ashes into the air at the cliff's edge. The outside soldiers initially watched curiously as we villagers tossed the ashes.

"Come on," I soon invited them, too. "There are a lot of ashes to toss here with these two. Join in—and let this dragon and man stay with you a while. Let their ashes linger on your hands." I was now a guide to Berk, just as Roana had been with me when I was seeing all of this for the first time.

Soon the soldiers joined in, tossing ashes with us. Even the five Russian captives finally joined in, some with tears in their eyes. If only the Russians could remember this experience. It would change them for life. If only the world could know this experience, I wished as well.

— — — — —

The funerals went on into the night. I decided that neither the deceased nor the bereaved should be kept waiting any longer than they already had been. We took the occasional break between some funerals, and thankfully, the soldiers shared their coffee with Roana and I to keep us going. We also doubled up when deceased honourees were of the same family, or were Dragon and Rider together. The losses among our Dragon Riders though were terrible, even crippling. Roana and I were now the only knights left, and we had just six other riders to maintain patrols with, once the military forces that were currently surrounding us departed. Those were problems for later however.

But for each fallen villager we honoured, with Roana's help, I tried to make the ceremony relevant and personal, even though I did not know most of them.

I did know one villager though, at least from a distance. It was the man who had raised his hand to the invaders, and posed as me for a while . . . for as long as he could.

"This man saved my life," I said as I stood next to his blanket-wrapped body, while his surviving dragon companion, a Nadder, watched over him. "He bought my escape, and he bought us hours of precious time to organize, and keep the enemy from beginning their search of the island for me, and possibly finding those of us who were free. I am told he bravely recited every fact he could think of about America, biology, the dragons, and science in general. He played me as well as I would have under the circumstances he faced. His dragon even signalled his willingness to put his companion out of his misery with a blast, to end his suffering, as his captors realized he wasn't really me and began torturing him more, even in front of the village. But Sven shook his head, dissuading his Nadder, and insisting to his captors that he was me right through his death.

"I have never seen such courage and bravery," I continued, "until I saw Sven raise his hand that day and volunteer to do something, to take someone else's place and suffer an end that he willingly chose, but did nothing to deserve. Rest in Asgard, brother," I concluded as I bent down and placed my hand on his blanketed head. "You deserve my place there."

I stood beside Sven's Nadder, as the dragon emitted a steady blast of fire and reduced his companion's body to ashes. I glanced over at the Soviets, having given instructions beforehand to their guards ensure that they watched and heard my words as a SEAL member translated what I had said into Russian for them. I really wanted them to remember this, to be haunted by it, for what they had done to this man. Even though I knew we would likely have to erase their memories, I hoped that somehow it would endure in their subconsciouses, even gnaw at them from there. But I controlled my hatred. Like the pain in my shoulder I had known during the battle, I simply didn't have time to hate right now.

As Roana and I tossed handfuls of Sven's ashes together, my mate looked at me with concern. "Lance, you should take a break," she encouraged. "I can do the next funeral, and then you after that."

"I couldn't speak a whole service in Norse right now if I tried," I sighed as I motioned for a soldier to bring me another cup of coffee. "Remember 'all-nighters' in college?"

"Yeah," she agreed with seeming reluctance.

"Our village just needs us to pull an all-nighter here," I said as the coffee was now brought to me. "Who among our fallen doesn't deserve the chief presiding at their funeral?"

"Or the village attending?" she reminded me. "So, let's please allow the living to rest for a few hours, and pick this up when we are awake and present enough to give the fallen the attention they deserve, let alone the respect."

"Alright," I quietly accepted, even though I had just swallowed most of my coffee.

"Geldur okkar—" Roana began to announce next to me to the rest of the village.

"Wait!" I then interjected, seeing my new dragon son now tearfully looking at the next body in line waiting to be honoured . . . that of his aunt. "We can do one more. Leitit hana framvirka. Bring her forward," I then instructed several human villagers around the platform she was on.

"Sonur, bitstötu nærri hjá mér hér. Son, stand beside me here," I invited as we both stood directly in front of his aunt's body before the crowd. "Viltu segja eitthvat at byrja? Do you want to say anything to start?" I asked. "Þú veist hana betur miklu en ek. You know her much better than I do."

The young dragon then looked out at the crowd, grunting.

"'My aunt gave me two important things,'" Roana translated to me for him. "'She gave me life, by telling me to fly away with other dragons during the first fight. Now, she has given me a second, even greater gift. She has given me a father again.'"

The young Night Fury now looked up at me. I couldn't help but kneel down next to him as we nudged snout to nose again. Even though we were of different species, this dragon was my son now.

The dragon grunted, looking at me as I more loosely embraced him. "He's saying, 'Father, could we help her fly to Spirit now?'" Roana conveyed.

"Já, Sonur. Yes, Son," I said, closing my eyes and nodding. I then stood up again, keeping a hand on his neck, as he and a number of other dragons his aunt had known in life now gathered around her body, before Rökkr then hummed, leading us all in a briefer than usual dragon prayer. Dragon and human, we were all very tired now.

"Þakka þér. Thank you," I finally said to this elderly Night Fury in front of us now, "fyrir at veita mér sonur at elska, for giving me a son to love."

The young dragon extended a wing around my waist as he glanced up in profound gratitude towards me.

"Vit sendum nú systur okkar til Anda. We now send our sister to Spirit," I said, looking at my son before we both looked at his aunt again. "Lifandi í gleti, og horft yfir okkur. Live in joy, and watch over us. Eldur. Fire."

My adopted son and the other dragons surrounding his aunt now fired gentle, sustained blasts against her body. I glanced at the young Night Fury next to me as he maintained his blast, just stroking his head, before looking on his aunt's pyre again as it and she burned. I now felt my son's right wing grip around me more tightly. Out of tragedy, good was already coming . . . incredible good.

Once this body, too had been reduced to white ash, all of us gathered around stepped forward. My son and I together blew and tossed the first ashes into the night air, gently smiling at each other after we did.

"Ek er svo stolt af þér. I am so proud of you," I said to him. He just nudged his head against my waist as he wrapped his wing even harder around my back and side.

"Now it is bedtime for all of us," Roana said beside me after tossing her own handful of ashes.

"You'd make a good mother," I said with a hand still resting on my dragon son's head.

"I'm just getting warmed up on that score," she smiled, drawing close and extending her own arm around me as well. "But no," she preemptively added, "there's nothing to report, yet."

"Well then," I quietly said right into her ear, "I'd like to do something about that with you, as I'm liking being father to a dragon here."

She just glanced at me almost mischievously before turning and announcing to the crowd, "Geldur okkar, en vit munum halda áfram þessu seinna um morguninn!"

The rest of the village readily seemed to accept our decision with some relief now as they turned to go home. As they did though, I could still see a line of wrapped human bodies and deceased dragons on wooden platforms, stretching back through the village along the grassy commons, waiting to be honoured and then cremated. Upon hearing our decision, loved ones simply sat or lay down on the grass beside their fallen, and began to doze while one of them remained awake to keep watch. It was a sight that tore at my heart despite my fatigue as Rökkr, Roana, my son and I walked past them.

Then, I just decided to pick one fallen Dragon and Rider at random who were laying together on a wooden platform. "Ek mun sofa hérna, halda horfa á, met þér. I will sleep here, keep watch, with you," I managed to say to their family in both languages, as I just sat down on the grass beside them. "Roana, you, Rökkr and our son go on to the house if you like. I just feel that if we can't lay the remainder of our fallen to rest right now, the least I can do is keep them and their families company until we can."

"You are going to be a good chief," my mate said as she just sat down beside me. Before we knew it, Roana and I were just collapsing down onto the grass beside the deceased Dragon and Rider and their family, instinctively curling up into each other's arms and falling sound asleep as my dragon son lay down against my other side and Rökkr wrapped himself around all three of us, sheltering us with his wing as a gentle rain fell . . . even though our own house was now just steps away.

I hoped that Substance would understand us not coming back to the boathouse to rest that night, and imagined that she did.

So went my first day as Chief of Berk. As big as becoming chief had been, it was nothing though compared with gaining my dragon son.

* * *

><p><em>Note<em>

_Just a reminder that the names used here are fictitious. Any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, aside from historical references, is purely coincidental._

— _Norwesterner_


	25. Chapter 25

I awoke on the commons grass to a bright but cloudy day, and a village that was busy around me. While Roana and Rökkr were already up and gone off somewhere, someone was still beside me, even watching over me . . . my son.

I smiled, so happy to wake up seeing him. "Þú færa mér gleti, þú veist? You bring me joy, you know that?" I said.

The young dragon just smiled at me as he stood next to me, almost seeming to be on guard duty somehow for me.

"En þú veist, But you know," I decided, "vit erum at fara at hafa kennarinn þinn, og samþykkti mótir, Substance, kenna þér at tala ensku eins og hún gerir. We are going to have your teacher, and adopted mother, Substance, teach you to speak English as she does."

The dragon looked at me with a degree of surprise now.

"Ek vil skilja hvat þú segir. I want to understand what you say," I added. "þat er mun autveldara fyrir þig at læra at tala ensku, en þat er fyrir mig at skilja Dreki, allt í lagi? It is a lot easier for you to learn to speak English, than it is for me to understand Dragon, okay?"

"J-j-j-jáaa . . ." he stammered in a smaller and somewhat higher-pitched dragon voice than Substance's.

"Mjög gott! Very good!" I praised, sitting up and laying a hand warmly on his head. "En segja, 'Yes'. But say, 'Yes'. 'Yes' á ensku fyrir 'Já'. 'Yes' is English for 'Já'."

"Y-y-yessss," he haltingly said, almost with a hiss as he did.

"Mjög gott! Very good!" I praised again.

My dragon son just smiled at me with a sense of satisfaction.

"Þú vaka yfir mér í dag? Vertu förunautur minn? You keep watch over me today? Be my companion?" I then invited.

He silently nodded with another smile before nudging me as I embraced his head. At least I had one family member today who wouldn't be torn away from me.

But I soon found Roana had a good reason for disappearing without waking me. "Morgunvertur! Breakfast!" I now heard her yell from the other side of the commons. She had organised other villagers into setting up a communal buffet breakfast outdoors, on the other side of the row of the fallen from me. Human villagers, dragons, soldiers, and even the POW's, were invited to partake.

"Brigader, General," I remarked with my Night Fury son at my side, as I saw them walk into the village. "You're still here."

"We slept with our troops last night," Thorndyke explained. "We felt we should stay for all the funerals, plus camping with our men is a good morale-booster, and a nice break from H.Q. routine for me."

"The place will seem positively empty without all of you here," I smiled, before we were interrupted by Garrison the Nightmare swooping overhead with one of his SEAL platoon friends on his neck. Banking into a turn and powering upward in a spiral, both dragon and SEAL rider were clearly having a blast. It was the first truly joyful sight I had seen in the village since the battle.

"I think our people will miss being here, too," Thorndyke replied as we watched the two of them go.

"General," I suggested, still looking up, "would you like to make a deal?"

"What kind of deal?" Thorndyke sceptically asked, now looking at me.

"Well," I said, "our Dragon Rider force has been more than decimated. There's only eight of us left, and I'm without a flying dragon right now."

"I can't afford to have an entire SEAL platoon stationed here," he quickly replied. "They're too valuable."

"Garrison needs a rider," I noted as I watched the dragon and one of his new friends fly away, "but he can only take one at a time."

"You're saying rotate his platoon, one at a time, through training and duty in this village?" the general queried.

"He is their mascot," I reminded Thorndyke. "And we would help them live up to their monicker, 'The Fighting Dragons', giving you even better soldiers."

"Sailors, they're Navy," he reminded me. "But housing?" he then asked.

"Consider it taken care of," I replied.

"Done," he agreed as we shook on it.

"I on the other hand," Brigader Hyse now added, "can do you one better. How about rotating Norwegian special forces units through here for dragon training and patrols, for as long as you need them? We'll even supply you with better covert power and facilities, in exchange for being able to establish a hidden coastal post here, manned by those special forces."

I thought for a moment.

"You would never be invaded again like you were this time," he noted. "We would be here."

"We have cared for our own needs in the past," I hesitated. "What about our independence?"

"We Norwegians understand and value independence," he assured. "Remember, even though we are an ancient people, we were a country dominated first by Denmark from 1380, then Sweden from 1814 until 1905, and then again by Germany during World War II. Your autonomy would continue, as already laid out and guaranteed in your treaty."

"You would leave if we no longer needed you, or asked you to," I responded, "and would be willing to agree to those terms as a treaty amendment?"

"Let's have our formal representatives work it out in Oslo, but yes," he agreed, "let this be our working understanding for now, as we are already here."

"Agreed, Brigader," I replied as I shook his hand.

"And," he added, "when our special forces are training or serving as Dragon Riders, they are under your operational command. Plus, even when they are doing our work here, nothing significant happens without your approval, and you approve any installations we make."

"Thank you, Brigader. While I, too will consult with others, I accept," I responded, while finding myself somewhat nervous at all the outsiders who would now start being a regular part of life here, even though still sworn to secrecy.

"I can't tell you how much better it is to be working with you already, Doctor," the brigader complimented however. "Your predecessor was something of a mystery to us, never talking or meeting with us directly, just through intermediaries, even through your wife at times."

"I'm still learning about all that she has done in her past myself," I sighed. "But there is a centuries-long distrust of outsiders among our tribe. If my great-grandfather hadn't had a falling-out and left for Canada himself, I might have grown up here feeling the same way. The world around us is changing however. People are able to see things and go places they never have before. Having grown up in it, I see it as much as anyone. We want to preserve who we are though, what we have here. That is much of what the treaty is about."

"I can appreciate that," Brigader Hyse agreed. "The world is still far from ready to accept your dragons anyway, so the Norwegian military and intelligence services are committed to maintaining your secrecy here. But just as we are beginning to respect the Sami peoples' autonomy and wish to preserve their way of life in the Finnmark lands of the far north through a negotiated agreement with them, so can we with the people and dragons of Berk as well. It is really no different."

"This was all started by our wish to remain Viking, but not Norse," I said. "Now, I wonder if we can still be even Norse, but not Norwegian."

"Let us see together over the time to come," the brigader invited. "But you say you came from Canada?"

"Yes," I confirmed. "Why?"

"Because my grandfather came from there," the brigader replied. "Even though he was born there, I'm told he wasn't all that happy growing up in Canada, preferring Norse over English heritage. I supposed he was teased as a Viking somewhat by the Canadian school kids where he grew up, and he apparently had no small amounts of disagreements with his father."

"What was your great-grandfather's name?" I asked with growing interest, even anticipation now.

"Asger," the brigader said, "Asger Husa . . . although I heard it was being pronounced 'Hyse' in your country, just as I've heard your surname pronounced."

"My great-grandfather," I said in amazement.

"That is the link," the brigader smiled.

"Cousin!" I said, embracing him warmly now.

"I think it's second cousin actually, but I'll take cousin," my newfound relative replied. "Our great grandfather evidently never told my grandfather about Berk, so my grandfather just assumed he was Norwegian, and became one. But, I suppose this makes me one of your Outside Berkers now, although I am a senior officer in the Royal Norwegian Air Force, and my loyalties cannot be divided."

"May there never be cause," I assured, "for your loyalties between your Norwegian nation and your Berk tribe to be anything other than unified now."

"You and I will work together to see that it happens, Cousin," he smiled.

I just silently nodded with a smile as well.

"But I am hungry here," he now noted, "and your food smells very good."

"Of course," I smiled, remembering my duties as host. "Please, enjoy breakfast. I should be preparing more for our funerals here. I still have yet to meet and get to know some of the families of our fallen for the first time."

"Lance," my new cousin said, stopping me again for a moment. "You and your wife will come to visit my family and I at our farm near Trondheim, won't you?"

"I understand there is supposed to be a strict separation between Dragon Berkers like me and the outside world," I said. "But maybe we can come up with a story about Roana and I living in a remote island settlement, spending our lives doing biological research or something."

"My wife and family know better than to ask too many questions," he assured. "We could pick you up by helicopter here, or your dragons could fly you to our bunker on base. They would be treated very well . . . all the salmon they could want."

"Let's see if we can set a date later," I smiled, "after things settle down here."

"Let's," my cousin agreed, coming over to shake my hand again. "It is so very good though to discover new family here."

"Just as I thought I'd have to give all that up in leaving the outside for here," I noted.

"You're just fortunate I have a top secret clearance as well, Colonel," he quipped.

"I suppose that means I have to salute you, as you outrank me, Brigader," I replied in kind.

"We're family, Lance," he smiled. "Just call me Gunnar."

"Well for now, Gunnar," I accepted warmly as I clasped his right hand and arm with both of mine, "why don't you just enjoy breakfast at my place here?"

"I shall," he accepted. "But who is this young dragon who has seemed to be sticking very close to you for a day now?"

"He lost his aunt in the initial attack," I said looking at the Night Fury next to me, "and his parents to injury and accident sometime before that. He and I met when he asked me to play soccer one day. I never had so much fun. Right after the first attack, both he and my dragon companion, Substance, convinced me to leave this island, for all our sakes, before I was discovered. When he found me again yesterday, and I learned from my mate that he was alone, I took him in, adopting him . . . as my son." I wasn't quite sure how my cousin would take that.

The brigader knelt down, looking my dragon son in the eyes as my son looked at him. "Forgive me," he finally said, "I'm still getting used to the idea that your Substance was able to recommend our battle plan. But they are really that intelligent, that aware . . . to the point where you could call one 'son'? I'm sorry," my cousin added, "can he understand what I'm saying?"

"No, not yet," I replied as I knelt down as well beside my adopted son, "but this young dragon understands Old Norse fluently, and as you've seen, my grown dragon companion has quickly learned English from me. This one is as good or better at soccer than I could hope to be though. They have their own dialects, culture, mythology, even spirituality—some of which you've seen at our funerals—and much of which humans here have adopted over the nine hundred years we and the dragons have been together. Their intelligence has never been formally tested to my knowledge, but it's one of the things I want to eventually establish. From what I've been able to assess so far, they have very large brain to body mass ratios, especially Night Furies. Older dragons come to have an awareness, even a wisdom, that is frankly astonishing. But they are equals with us here, even fellow citizens. We're not just protecting a species, or even a genus, Gunnar . . . we're protecting a symbiotic, and shared, way of life."

My dragon son now looked at me with uncertainty.

"Þat er allt í lagi. It's okay," I assured, laying a hand on his neck.

"You know how astounding this is?" my cousin said, almost lost in wonder now as he continued to gaze at the Night Fury.

"It's why I was drawn to settle here," I replied, "with barely a day to make my decision."

The brigader stood up again while General Thorndyke watched him, evidently being more aware of Berk and our reasons for being than his Norwegian counterpart. "Well, see you later, Cousin," my newfound relative said, "and I suppose I should say, see you later, too, Nephew . . . or Second Cousin once removed, perhaps," he added to my dragon son next to me.

"Hann er at segja, 'Bless í bili, Brótursonur,'" I conveyed in Old Norse for my son.

The dragon just nervously nodded to his new relative, much like any young nephew would.

"Remarkable," my cousin said.

"Yes they are," I agreed, giving my son a reassuring rub on his head.

"But with you speaking Old Norse here," the brigader then quipped, "I will have to start studying the sagas again."

"Well, if you can learn to read Runes, why don't you read our family's ancient saga?" I invited. "Our ancestor, Hiccup—weird name I know, but that's what it was in English anyway—wrote a life journal of our people's exodus to this island almost a thousand years ago. It's a book everyone here reads, it represents the core of why we're here, and there are a good number of copies of it around. As both an Outside Berker, and family, it's a history you should know."

"English I can read," he sighed. "But Runes? That may take a while to learn, not to mention the different syntax of Old Norse."

"Maybe there's something I can do about that," I said, tucking a nascent idea into the back of my head for now. "But go, enjoy breakfast. Oh, and that one shipment I requested during a break last night?"

"It will be arriving via helicopter by this evening," he assured. "Don't worry, we won't be leaving until it is."

I smiled slightly with relief as my cousin and I parted. But as I left the two flag officers to enjoy our hospitality, life in Berk was no longer seeming so simple.

"Where are you off to?" I heard a voice soon say behind me as I walked with my Night Fury son.

"I need to be meeting the families of those I'm going to have to be saying some more words about soon," I sighed, glancing at my mate.

"Breakfast first," she said, turning me back towards the feast tables, "especially for a hard-working chief like you, not to mention our newest young family member here."

"Roana," I asked, stopping us both, "am I already 'infecting' Berk with the outside? I mean, look around us. All this . . . it's because I'm here. If I wasn't, things would be as they were before. Roald, Árvekni and all the others would still be alive. Outsider troops would not be here . . ."

"And who knows how many more Night Fury mothers and other dragons would be dying in my hands," she replied directly. "Lance, I'm as sad as anyone about all whom we've lost here. But the dragons come first, ahead of maintaining our isolation or anything else."

"Yes," I admitted. "But—"

"Lance, I can appreciate what you're feeling," she empathized. "But you know, it's like Spirit or the gods picked us for this time Berk is facing now. Mountains and cliffs aren't enough to protect us, or the dragons, anymore. Smart dealing with the outside is. And no one is better equipped to do that than you and I are. We have both been on the outside. We have at least an appreciation of the complexities and risks of outside life, and an idea of how to manage them and keep what we really value here. Even though we have yet to read it together, I'll give you a preview of the rest of Hiccup's journal."

"What does that have to do with this?" I wondered.

"He wrote about surviving a, 'change of ages,' as he put it," Roana went on, "the end of the Viking Age and the beginning of the Christian Age in Europe, even in these Norse lands. We are facing as much change as he did—only this time, we have to open ourselves up, carefully, to the rest of the world, instead of closing ourselves off from it."

"The more I think about it, Lance," she said, almost with tears in her eyes, "the more I thank the gods, Spirit, God, whatever . . . for you, and me, together. I wasn't expecting us to be thrust into leading our tribe like this, or this soon, but it needed to happen."

"This soon?" I interrupted. "It's why you had me train as a knight, didn't you?"

"We had you train as a knight to protect both yourself, and all of us," she replied. "Substance was already an experienced knight and guardian, and you needed to catch up with her. With her being significantly younger than either Roald or Árvekni, she was expected to assume preeminent leadership of the tribe anyway at some point. You needed to be right there with her. You were basically on a path towards becoming chief the moment you bonded with her, as her companion, let alone as Dragon and Rider—not to mention as a biologist saving them, _and_ your family line."

"Roana, we promised no more surprises," I said with a bit of sharpness.

"Like we've had time to talk about this," she shot back.

"I've been here three months," I countered.

"Can't you figure a few things out on your own?" Roana answered. "Do I have to spell everything out in Braille to you?"

"That's out of line," I replied, feeling stung for my dragon and her loss of vision now.

My Night Fury son barked at both of us. A look of uncertainty, even hurt or fear was in his eyes.

"I'm sorry," my mate apologised, looking down and away. I was still fuming though. "Lance?" she said more gently.

"Not now," I said, turning away, just needing a moment.

"It has to be now," she replied, taking my hand. "You and I don't have the luxury of letting resentments linger or just subside on their own. The tribe is looking to us, together, just as our son is."

I glanced at my newly adopted son. He was now gesturing with his eyes and head towards Roana as he gave me an almost pleading look.

I looked down, took a deep breath, turned back and just embraced my mate tightly.

"I'm sorry, too," I whispered in her ear, before kissing it. "This is one hell of a marriage discipline."

That caused Roana to laugh into my shoulder.

"If I had this kind of help from dragons on the outside," I sighed, "I'd still be married to my first wife, to Melanie."

"You were meant to have it here," my mate replied, "with me."

I couldn't help but kiss Roana now, hard. She kissed me back with equal passion . . . before she started crying.

"What's the matter?" I wondered in between our kisses.

"Fatigue, bottled-up emotions, things just catching up with me—you name it, Doctor," she replied as we now treasured each other. "I'm sorry I snapped at you."

I just took a deep breath through my nose as I inhaled the scent of her hair, before allowing myself to kiss her neck.

"Ohhh," she sighed, "now you're a Viking—taking what you want."

"Hmmm, hmmm," I agreed, finally breaking off my growing appreciations of her and restraining myself. "A Viking Chief, no less."

"I love my Viking Chief," she said, looking at me as we continued to hold each other close, "for the man he is inside, more than anything else."

"I'm not sure I deserve that at times," I confessed.

"The dragons would say that's a block to mating," she suggested, kissing me again.

"I'd have to agree with them," I reluctantly smiled.

"How would you like me to mate with you today?" she now asked warmly.

I held her tightly. "You said something like that to me, our first mating night together," I said, deeply moved by her words.

"I am here with you," she whispered in my ear, " . . . all of me."

"If we were anywhere but here, out in the open with things to do right now . . ." I said, gazing at her.

"Me, too," she agreed.

"I love you," I surrendered.

"Yeahhh . . ." she whispered in my ear, sending an overwhelming shudder right through me. I just had to kiss her, even harder.

But then I heard cheering, even roaring around us. I tried to stop, but Roana wouldn't let me out of the now iron grip of her arms around my head and shoulders until she had finished with me. Finally, she took a deep, shuddering breath as well, relaxing her hold as she buried her head against the crook of my neck.

We just stood there for a moment, holding each other close and catching our breaths, as the cheering and roaring around us continued.

"Are we supposed to be doing this?" I asked.

"Ohh yeah," she assured. "It's what makes us Vikings . . . raw and passionate, celebrating the moment, seizing life itself. And life, exulting in it, is what our people need now. Plus, you're the first mated chief this village has had in almost forty years, and from what I've heard anyway, mated chiefs used to set some pretty healthy examples around here at times."

"Roana," I objected, but with a growing, irrepressible smile.

"Come on, Chief, breakfast," she invited. "The military has flown in some fruit, and I want to share an apple with you . . . slowly."

"You are absolutely terrible, you know that?" I smiled as we began walking together.

"I love you, too," she replied.

My joie de vivre of the moment left me though when I glanced at the line of the fallen again, each waiting to be honoured.

"Hey," my mate said, looking at them with me, "they are cheering the loudest of all for us."

"Yeah, they are," I accepted. "They're also reminding me what I have, right here next to me."

"Me, too," she agreed.

"Roana . . ." I began to say.

"Tonight," she replied.

"I'm there," I accepted. "Fruit?" I then offered, stopping us next to one of the breakfast buffet tables. Before she could even turn, I grabbed a nice red apple and held it sideways for her. Without taking her eyes off me, Roana bit into it deeply, but not completely. I soon joined her, biting down on the other side of it as the juice of that apple ran down both our chins.

I glanced to one side, seeing not only our dragon son seeming to smile at us, but our neighbour lady, Tana, smiling right along with him.

"Told 'ya," my mate affirmed with her mouth full. I just sighed, chuckling with a smile again as the apple dropped between us and I caught it with my left hand.

"What about our generals?" I then noted, glancing in the other direction, and seeing them suddenly look away nearby as they were loading their plates with scrambled eggs.

"They're just envious," Roana assured. "That, and they'll probably be buying apples before they get back home."

"Roana!" I admonished, half laughing however.

"I am terrible, just as you said," she shrugged as she lifted our apple out of my hand and took another bite. "I'm just living up to it."

"Give me that apple," I smiled.

Life was beginning to go on for us once more. Even the sun was shining a warm beam on our village now.

— — — — —

Refreshed with healthy doses of sleep and love, along with a good breakfast, I was ready once again to lead the remaining funerals. This time though, I stepped forward and helped push or bear each of our fallen into the ceremonial area, giving a few words of gentle encouragement in Norse to each group of family and friends as I did. After her initial surprise the first time, Roana was right there beside me, pushing or sharing the load, the rest of the day.

Instead of sadness, each family or group was going away with tearful smiles as a funeral would end and the ashes were blown and tossed. My clothes, especially the back of both my tunic and cloak became almost white with ash from many grateful embraces.

Roana just quietly smiled at me between ceremonies as morning turned into afternoon. It was all she needed to say though.

By sunset of that day, we had finally cremated the last of our dead, sending them off with our love across the ocean to Asgard. I prayed, and still do, that I would never preside over that many funerals in a single day again.

Three of the four Norwegian and American special forces units made ready to depart, but not before I dealt with one more problem that day. I was just thankful General Thorndyke had brought a Judge Advocate General or 'JAG' officer with him to brief me with what I needed to know concerning the internationally-accepted treatment and disposition of Prisoners of War.

I found myself sitting on a log at the edge of the commons, receiving an abbreviated oral summary from not only the JAG officer of the main provisions and legalities around the Third Geneva Convention—I hadn't even known that there was more than one of them—but also briefings from the Norwegian and American intelligence operatives who had been interrogating the Soviet POWs as well. As I took all this in, I gained a new respect, even admiration, for Roana as I glanced at her now and then while she sat next to me. She paid close attention to what the officers were telling us, even asking more questions than I did. Roald and Árvekni had clearly avoided handling this kind of complexity in dealing with the outside. From what my cousin had told me this morning, virtually all of it had been falling onto my mate.

"Now, Lance," she picked up as soon as the officers were done and had left, "here's what you need to know about our tribe's traditional punishments. We've had just two basic punishments among us—"

"Roana, stop for a moment," I gently interrupted. "You've met with Brigader Husa and others before on the outside, haven't you?"

"Yes, I have," she replied. "I've been the elders' trusted emissary to the outside for about five years now—four that I remember anyway. The Norwegians and NATO basically had no choice but to grant me a top security clearance, equal to yours, right from the start. I even have a Norwegian diplomatic passport and credentials when I need them, plus training from both Norwegian special forces and the FSA. My learning English at WSU, and taking a suggested minor in Global Studies, just came in very handy."

"What's your rank?" I asked.

"Major, FSA," she replied. "Only a couple grades below you, Colonel. I just earned mine—for both diplomatic and intelligence reasons—in a lot less time."

I just took her into my arms as we sat on that log together.

"I'm sorry you had to do all that by yourself," I said.

"Why do you think I love you like I do," she answered.

"I expect a full briefing on you sometime, Major," I whispered.

"I'll make it a _verrry_ personal one, Colonel," she breathed right back. "But Lance, we have to get back to business here."

"I know," I admitted, releasing her.

"Well, I _could_ whisper what you need to know right now in your ear," she suggested. "But I doubt you would pay much attention."

"Go on," I smiled, just sitting upright next to her now. "Just hit me with the essentials."

"As I was saying," she picked right up, "this tribe has only ever had two types of punishment among ourselves, and one other for outsiders that was developed with time and experience . . ."

As I listened to Roana, once more I realized everything about Berk was so wonderfully basic, yet deeply sensible, while the Geneva Conventions were anything but. Yet as the de-facto judge for my tribe now, I had to reconcile the two forms of law together. Fortunately, in my previous life, I had dealt with complex, even impossible-to-comprehend, subjects all the time.

— — — — —

"I am a scientist," I finally said after darkness had fallen and our commons was illuminated by torchlight once again. I now paced slowly in front of our six surviving Red Army captives as a SEAL translated my words into Russian next to the captives, while Roana also interpreted my words into Norse for the assembled villagers around us. "I am also a physician, and I took an oath to do no harm. But I must protect my tribe. Since your transgression took place solely against our tribe, Berk has been given final authority as to your disposition. We have just two punishments among ourselves though . . . reparation or execution—along with a third for Outsiders, memory erasure.

"From what I am told, reparation has been used, but rarely needed," I continued. "We have never executed a single person, or dragon, however. Even during World War II, those who attacked us all died in the one attack. We didn't have survivors to deal with. I am informed by the Norwegian FSA and American CIA agents who have interrogated you that you were acting under orders, not on your own, so you are subject to the rules of the Geneva Conventions, as we choose to be as well.

"Me? I would want to kill you," I continued, "every last one of you, for what you did here. But the Geneva Conventions say simple vengeance or revenge is wrong, as our dragons tell us as well. So that leaves us with but one alternative. We cannot simply release you back to your government and nation with what you know of us, or me—even prior to this attack. The memory drugs your government has used though . . . they have seemed most effective, unfortunately on my mate," I said, glancing at Roana. "So, anticipating this, I asked our allies for a batch of those, which have been rushed to us and have just arrived. Therefore, under the provisions of the Berk Sovereignty Treaty, which even the Soviet Union signed in 1943," I ruled, "we are treating you as Outside Trespassers, which allows us to dispense with a trial as the Third Geneva Convention would otherwise call for. As a provision in the Berk treaty allows us to modify dosage and application of memory drugs sufficient to erase any memory of us as we deem necessary, we will apply a dose of Soviet memory drugs on each of you, sufficient to erase one year of your lives, which should cover all surveillance, training and other preparations you made for your attack on us. We will then have Norway and NATO convey both you and your twelve fallen comrades home."

I was now stopped by Roana, who came up beside me and took my arm. "Could I see you for a second?" she said.

"Roana," I sighed as we stepped aside. "Alright, what is it?"

"One of the Soviet soldiers wishes to defect," she replied quietly. "He got my attention and quietly let me know."

I looked down, not knowing what to do. "I don't know if I want any of them here," I finally said.

"Lance, even though they are signatories to the Berk treaty as you noted," my mate observed, "the odds of us getting any reparations from the Soviets right now are remote to zero."

"What's your point?" I asked.

"What is the value of a healthy young man to us, especially with fresh genes, and especially right now?" she posed.

"Can we ever trust him?" I countered. "Especially with those electronic devices they're wearing under the skin of their shoulders?"

"So that's how they were able to do what they did," she realized, "know you were here, and get knowledge of your presence out after the first time."

"Yeah," I said. "Through 'itching' themselves . . . both times with me."

"Our doctor and I can remove that, easily," she replied. "It probably should come out anyway."

"I wish at least Substance was here," I regretted, "that I wasn't making this decision alone."

"Sorry, Lance, but you're it right now," Roana noted.

"There used to be two other votes here among the leadership," I pointed out.

"You want two other votes?" she responded. "Well I vote 'yes'. Rökkr?" she then asked him as he stood next to us.

Rökkr quietly barked.

"He votes 'yes'," she conveyed.

"But how about the villagers who were here?" I countered. "Who suffered and were terrorized under these men?"

"You're bearing that in mind," she noted. "That makes you a good leader, and capable of making this decision."

"I'm asking the village," I then decided, turning with Roana and leading her around the six captives who were under guard to address the village.

"One of these Soviet soldiers," I said as my mate translated in Norse beside me, "has asked to defect . . . to join us. I am uncertain as to whether I want any of them here. But if any of you want to take him in, and none of you object, he can join us. What do you say?"

The villagers, both human and dragon, looked and murmured among each other for a moment.

"They've never been asked such a thing before," Roana explained next to me. "The elders have normally decided among themselves."

"Democracy," I simply replied to her.

"Which can also lead to disagreement and discord," my mate noted. "Harmony is essential to us here."

"I trust the village," I decided.

Finally one pair of villagers stepped forward . . . Frelsari and Helga, having returned from their shift of caring for Substance. The dragon grunted.

"Frelsari asks, 'Which of them wishes to join us?'" Roana translated.

I turned to our captives. "Will the one who wishes to defect step forward towards the villagers," I instructed.

All six captives remained together however, looking either suspiciously or nervously among each other.

"Whether our village accepts or rejects any of you," I said to them, "either way, your comrades will not remember. I promise."

One Soviet commando now stepped forward. I felt a chill run through me.

"Not him," I quietly said, turning to Roana. "He's the one I picked up, the one who alerted the others that he had found me."

Frelsari grunted behind me now.

"Frelsari says he and Helga will take him in," Roana conveyed. "He says, 'This one did not do to us what some of the others did. He was hesitant.'"

"Eru einhverjar þeir sem mótmæla þessu? Is there anyone who objects to this?" I asked, hoping that there would be.

After waiting for what seemed like moments, one village man, older and with a greying beard and hair, now stepped forward.

"Ein matur mótmæla. One man objects," I said with inward relief.

To my surprise however, the man interrupted me. "He says, 'No,'" Roana quickly translated for me. "'If turning an enemy into a friend, even family, can prevent this tragedy, this terror among us from happening again . . .'"

The man then broke into tears.

I briefly lowered my head. "Hann getur dvöl. He can stay," I finally said loud enough for all the village to hear. I then turned toward the defector. "Our people have placed a sacred trust in you," I said coldly to him. "Never betray it."

"I will not," the man now pledged, stiffening at attention in front of me as he spoke a Russian-accented English I found unsettling.

"They will be your family now," I said nonetheless, gesturing towards Frelsari and Helga. "You may join them. And we will be removing that device in your shoulder within a few days."

The Soviet defector nodded to me smartly before turning to join his host family.

"Lyubye soobshcheniya v vashyeĭ semʹe?" his now former superior asked behind him as the man walked over to our side.

"'Any messages to your family?'" the SEAL translator conveyed for my benefit.

"Vy ne budete pomnitʹ ikh vse ravno. You will not remember them anyway," the defector turned and said in both Russian and English, presumably to reassure me. "Just please report my death and loss of my remains to fire," he then said to the SEAL translator, "so that my Russian family does not suffer the punishment of a defector."

The SEAL translator silently nodded towards him.

I then moved in front of the enemy commander.

"Our punishment, it is better than I was expecting . . . better than death," the rough-looking Russian seemed to accept with some indifference in his own accented English. "We would have executed. But how you know we won't come back? Won't try again?"

He seemingly didn't have much gratitude at all for the mercy I had just shown him. I looked at him now with hatred. For the first time in my life, I wanted to slug the man, even take my knight's dagger and stab him right there. But I restrained myself.

"Your government will know what happened to you here," I said instead. "The Norwegians will ensure they will, and our closer cooperation with the Norwegian and NATO militaries from here on will make it more difficult for you to get to us. You won't be fighting just us anymore, and your people will know that. What you sought from me would have hideously disfigured anyone foolish enough to use it anyway."

"I would not have been one of them," he replied to me. "You cannot cheat nature, or death. I knew this was fool's errand, but I had orders. Death would have been reward, but maybe ignorance could be, too. Hopefully, I leave you alone, go farm with my family," he said, showing me a small note written in Russian. "It says, 'Use this second chance.'"

I quickly waved the SEAL translator over to verify this. The sailor looked at the note and nodded to me.

"Search all the captives while they're in your custody," I then instructed the SEAL. "Make sure they have no compromising notes or information on them."

"Yes sir," the sailor quietly responded before stepping back to where he had been.

"I am placing it, right in this pocket of shirt," the Soviet officer then calmly noted as he did so, "right near heart, where I will find it. But my men and I have one request."

"What is that?" I replied.

"That we inject ourselves," he asked. "We are soldiers, not spies."

I looked at him with more respect now. I then nodded to Roana.

"Geftu þá sprautur," she quietly directed as other villagers now presented trays of specially dosed syringes to our captives, containing their own drugs. Each of the five remaining soldiers now took a syringe as our Dragon Rider and Allied guards around them tensed up some in precaution, while our dragons watched them all carefully. Our defector watched, surrounded by his host family. Frelsari even had his left wing around the young man. I could see that they wanted this to work.

"Thank you, comrade Chief," the Soviet officer said to me, before facing straight ahead and ordering his men, "Muzhchiny . . . vvodit."

Each soldier now plunged their syringe into their free arm, depressing the plunger. Soon, they were all collapsing on the ground. Our doctor and others checked to ensure that each syringe was fully injected before removing it from them, as Norwegian and American soldiers then put the Soviet POWs onto gurneys and carried them away.

"I must admit," Roana commented as we looked on together, "I wouldn't have thought of this solution. I would have turned them over to FSA or CIA, and let them figure out how to keep our secrets safe with these guys."

"I can't forget it," I said looking at them, and then at her, "every time I look at you."

Roana just moved to embrace me with understanding. "You did good here," she assured.

"Did I?" I wondered as I now looked at Frelsari and Helga walking away with their newest family member.

"You thought Árvekni was hard core, even Rökkr?" my mate said beside me. "Frelsari will be doubly so on him."

"That almost makes me feel sorry for the new guy," I smiled.

"Let's go home to Substance," Roana warmly invited. "She hasn't seen us for almost two days now."

"She likely will never _see_ us again," I noted, now looking down.

"Substance won't let that stop her," my mate assured. "Just you watch."

— — — — —

Finally, near midnight, Roana and I arrived on Rökkr back at the lifeboat station on the mainland, with our new dragon son landing beside us. As we all walked into the boathouse though, it felt truly weird to me now to think of anywhere else but the Island of New Berk as home, even temporarily.

We entered through one of the large, segmented glass boathouse doors from the ramp to see Substance's caregivers, a whole human family of two adults, complete with grandparents and two kids, as well as three grown Nadders with one juvenile as their dragon component, giving Substance a comprehensive scrubbing that she was thoroughly enjoying, judging by her open-mouthed smile.

"Living it up without us, eh?" I smiled.

"Lannce!" Substance enthusiastically replied with her much stronger deep voice now. I just rushed to kneel down and embrace my dragon's still-bandaged head while Roana thanked the family and caught up on what they had been doing for Substance. Soon, they were remounted on their Nadders, and flying off towards their home back on our island.

"They say a vet team has been visiting her daily and changing her bandages," Roana briefed me, "and that she's been starting to fill up on salmon filets already."

"We don't want you getting too fat or soft while you recover here," I kidded my dragon.

But there was one order of family business that needed to be attended to.

"Substance," I said as I motioned for our dragon son to come closer, "we have a new family member."

"It's Sumar's nephew," Roana interjected as she knelt down beside me.

"Sumar?" I asked, turning to my mate, having somehow overlooked getting that information during the dragon's funeral last night with a degree of regret now.

"Summer," she translated. "Just like Blóm loved flowers, this dragon's aunt loved summer, so that's what she came to call herself, among us humans anyway. Their grunted names among themselves are just normally unpronounceable to us."

Substance then gently grunted at the young dragon, still unable to turn her head though. The young Night Fury moved to gratefully nudge her.

"Accepted him as son, I have," Substance assured us.

The young dragon then grunted, looking at her.

"He says I am to teach him English," she noted with some surprise.

"It'll be easier than trying to teach me Dragon," I said almost apologetically as Roana and I rose to our feet again.

"You keep me busy, won't you?" Substance replied, hopefully with warmth, although it was difficult to tell.

Rökkr then settled himself down beside his mate, grunting and gesturing for the young Night Fury to come and join him. The small dragon compliantly went around to the other side and settled down against his other adoptive father.

"I'm glad our dragons are accepting him into our family as well," I quietly shared with Roana as we watched all three dragons together for the first time.

"They wouldn't think of doing anything else," my mate assured. "But even though they already know him by his grunted dragon name, are you going to just keep calling him 'Son' or 'him' all the time?"

"What do you think we humans should call him?" I asked her.

"You adopted him," Roana pointed out, volleying the issue right back to me.

"Well, how about Spring?" I thought.

"But it's almost Fall," she noted. "I know we can't do Summer, but . . ."

"He represents new hope, and new life for all of us, even our village," I said, looking at him as he now dozed against Rökkr. "To me, that's what spring is."

"His mother was named Winter among us, because she was born then and loved frolicking in the snow," my mate observed.

"Well, he's carrying on a family tradition then, isn't he?" I posed.

"Spring it is," Roana now agreed as we both looked at him again. "The poor guy looks to be falling asleep now though, so let's tell him later, maybe in the morning. But hey, while we have a phone here, mind if I go call my uncle?" she then asked. "He's probably been worried sick about me if our Outside Berker network has told him anything about what's been going on. I should have called him when we were here yesterday, but there's only so many things I can keep in my head."

"Roana," I assured, turning towards her, "you, and your beautiful head have been doing a lot better than I have here."

"Nuh uh," she gently disagreed as we slowly kissed, both breathing a deep sigh of relief. We just silently held each other for a minute, as all that had happened seem to hit both of us all over again.

"Thank you, Lance," she whispered.

"It's over," I found myself saying as I held her tighter.

"And something new is beginning," she gently replied into my ear. "I better make that phone call though," she then said, looking at me. "It's late, I'll probably wake my uncle up, but I owe it to him to let him know we're alright."

"Go ahead," I encouraged. "I'll see you in a while. Seeing Substance being scrubbed like she was sure leaves me feeling like a hot shower. Rökkr, you can keep your mate company for now, right?"

Rökkr gave a happy grunt and nod in confirmation as he watched over both his mate and our family's adopted son.

"Substance, how about you get busy and start teaching Rökkr to speak English as well?" I quipped as Roana and I headed for the boat crew's offices and quarters through a doorway.

"Errrrhh?" Rökkr now seemed to ask with a puzzled expression.

"Good start, Rökkr," I quipped. "Keep going. Oh, and Substance," I then remembered, "when we sent Roald and Árvekni off to Asgard last night, I took Árvekni as a dragon companion, too. I hope you don't mind."

"I would expect no less," she assured. "Go, enjoy your warm rain."

As Roana and I went through the doorway from the boathouse and turned in different directions between the station's offices and empty crew quarters, after all we had been through together, I realized we were finally enjoying a quiet, if late, family night . . . even if it was in a concrete, steel, wood and glass boathouse. Thank the gods!

And my shower? Having shed my heavy cloak, as well as the tunics and pants I had been wearing for days now, it was pure bliss.

"Move over," I heard as my mate soon stepped through the curtain and joined me in the shower.

"That was a short phone call," I said as I finished shampooing my hair while I allowed Roana a turn under the warm water.

"It was late, and he had hardly been sleeping since our entire network went on battle alert four days ago now," she replied.

"It's been that long?" I wondered.

"Yep," she confirmed as she warmed herself under the showerhead. "He was overjoyed at hearing my voice though, and asks to see us soon. I told him that we'll try, but that with your being chief now things are just a little busy and complicated. He said to tell you he is so proud of you, especially after I briefly shared with him how the battle went. I told him we're living with Substance at the lifeboat station for the time being as she recovers, so he can call us anytime, although we'll usually be over at the island during the days. He said he was so deeply relieved though that he was ready to fall asleep right then, but wants to talk with us another night."

"Could I rinse please?" I interjected.

"Oh, sorry," Roana apologised as we changed places under the showerhead and I washed the shampoo suds off me.

"You know, this feels really déjà vu in the shower here," I noted.

"Former life?" she queried.

"Sorry," I apologised. "I shouldn't bring my former life into ours now, especially at otherwise nice moments like this."

"We both have past lives," Roana assured. "But how about I wash you," she then invited, putting her wet arms around me. "I can't remember sharing a shower with you before."

"We have _never_ shared a shower before," I assured with a smile as I scrubbed my wet hair clean of soap.

"Oooo," she enthused. "Then let's get started."

"Let's . . ." I agreed, now focusing on my mate and drawing her towards me. Nothing had _ever_ felt so good.

— — — — —

Still laughing later as we left the station's crew quarters wrapped in just towels, with our clothes in the station's washing machine—something I was personally thrilled to have the use of again—Roana and I quieted down as we found our dragons seemingly sound asleep together in the boathouse space.

"Want to use the bed in the Coxswain's quarters?" I asked Roana as I held her from the side. "I'm not ready to stop sharing with you quite yet. So much has gone on."

"Well . . ." my mate hesitated.

"Come," Substance invited without raising her head from the air mattress.

We soon returned, with bedding from the Coxswain's quarters to make our usual family sleeping area on the floor that we were all used to now, except for perhaps one of us.

"Hvernig ertu at gera? How are you doing?" I softly asked my dragon son with just a towel wrapped around my waist, as he seemed to stir a little from being curled up close beside Rökkr.

"Thhinn," he said to my surprise.

"Ek held at þú átt 'Finn'. I think you mean 'Finn'," I said as I stroked his head.

"J-já," he agreed.

"Mjög gott, sonur. Very good, Son," I praised.

"You got him to speak Norse?" I my mate wondered aloud from the other side of Rökkr and Substance.

"Just 'Já' mostly so far," I replied. "He knows I can't understand Dragon, so he's trying to speak a human language he already knows. Norse is where we both understand each other. I'm just speaking bilingually to try and help him learn English so he can eventually choose which language he wants to talk to me in. Hlý og þægileg nóg? Warm and comfortable enough?" I then asked my son.

"Já," he replied with a yawn.

"Sofa. Sleep," I quietly assured him with a kiss on his head as Rökkr tucked a wing securely around him.

"You gonna tell him the name you picked?" I heard once more from the other side of Rökkr and Substance.

"Tomorrow," I decided. "The little guy's practically asleep now."

I just let Spring drift off to sleep now as I crept around to my side of the family, where Roana was already waiting for me, warmly tucked in among the sheets, blankets and quilts we had brought from the crew quarters.

"Comfortable?" I asked as I finally slipped into the bedding.

"I am now," Roana replied as she wrapped herself around me under the covers.

I kissed her deeply, but with a twinge of guilt for even being able to do so.

"Share," my mate invited, knowing me all too well.

I found myself suddenly unable to say a thing now, despite being full of talk just a short while ago.

"It's okay," she soothed as we held and rocked each other tightly. "Battle fatigue . . . it catches up with you. People have been experiencing and writing about it for thousands of years. Hiccup even had it after fleeing the Christians."

"How do you know about it?" I wondered, holding her close.

"Knight training with NATO units," she said. "Their instructors briefed us on it. I really learned it, because I was standing up beside the instructor translating it all into Old Norse. But share. What's going on within you?"

"You seem okay," I said, just savouring her presence against me.

"Because I saw Substance take you away during the first attack," she replied. "So I never worried about you for a second after that, which allowed me to focus on my job of organising and leading a resistance. Fortunately, I had no idea that this station was also taken and occupied—I would have been worrying about you if I had known about that. Then, during the battle, after Substance bucked you off, Rökkr and I were ready to intervene to protect you. But you swiftly gunned down those four bomb guards and that one other commando near you. Then our villagers and forces surrounded you. So basically, I never had a chance to worry about you."

"I should have been watching you," I noted.

"No you shouldn't have," she gently countered. "You were doing your job, and doing it magnificently, all by yourself. You were the best Dragon Knight I have ever seen or heard of. You are already a chief I am so very proud of, and you are a mate I love passionately. I could not ask for better than you, Lance. I really couldn't."

I could not say a word in response to all that as we now just looked at, even into each other. I silently moved to love my Roana deeply . . . before I remembered my dragon son was in the same room.

"I don't know if I want to, well . . . with my, excuse me, _our_ son around—even though he's a dragon," I sighed to my mate now.

"He's seen it all in caves," Substance chimed in beside us. "He knows humans love and procreate same as dragons. It is something we value, honour—not hide."

"How do you keep the young from doing it before they're ready, before they should, then?" I asked, looking up towards my dragon.

"I teach when young, if you ready to proclaim real, lasting love for someone in public, you ready to share it in private," Substance explained. "Hiccup, Astrid say that in journal. For cave dragons, it one and the same. It why families mostly sleep together in houses, too. Young learn to honour love, and parents watch young until ready. When older, everyone makes up own mind."

"But parents also often take it to a loft, or a curtained off bath, just as Hiccup and Astrid did, too," my mate qualified. "It's why Rökkr just invited our son over to his side tonight. You didn't exactly have a problem with him seeing us argue this morning," she then reminded me, "yet you have a problem with him even knowing we're loving one another?"

"You argue?" Substance picked up with concern.

"Only briefly," I clarified. "Roana told me that I had essentially been on a path towards becoming chief ever since I bonded with you, Substance. I just took it as yet another trap being sprung on me by surprise. Our son asked us not to argue with just a look though . . . and it worked."

"Good," Substance replied. "We think fighting, arguing in front of young much worse than loving. With dragons, arguing can injure, so real taboo against it. Young dragons, especially cave ones, think humans will injure each other when arguing, too . . . which in way, is true."

"So that's why he looked with such fear at us," I realized.

"That's why," both Roana and Substance replied together.

"You're in Berk, Lance, not the outside," my mate then gently reminded me as she traced the fingers of a hand along the side of my face. "We're keeping the dragons awake more with this talking than we would be just loving each other."

"True," Substance chimed in again.

"We, you and I, just fought a battle, a war, for our way of life," Roana now said in my arms, "so that families just like ours here, dragon and human, could go on sharing life, and love, as we have been for almost a thousand years now."

"I gave up sight, raised head, took bullets, so you could love Roana," my dragon added next to us, "like this."

I just reached my right hand to Substance now as I kissed Roana deeply and quietly moved to take her. I felt my mate raise her left arm as her hand joined mine in gratitude on my dragon's side, our fingers interlacing as we pressed them against her leathery hide.

"I will live as a Berker," I breathed. "Celebrate, honour life and love as we do, and have done for generations. I renounce Outsider ways, and fears. I renounce them."

"I love you, Lance," Roana breathed with me, "Outsider and all. Just love me, and hear me. Never miss a chance for us. I've waited for you, so long. I've fought for you, so hard. Just let it go . . . let it all go, for me."

"Roana . . ." I sighed deeply as I kissed her with everything I had.

"Já . . . ást," we heard a voice say on the other side of the dragons.

"Sofa, sonur," I said with a smile on my face, catching my breath as I looked into Roana's eyes as she smiled, too.

"Já, fatir," our dragon son replied.

"He learns fast," Roana noted in my arms, catching her own breath as well.

"Hopefully not too fast," I replied.

"Trust him," my mate encouraged, "trust us."

"I do," I assured as I moved to kiss Roana some more.

As my mate and I soon shifted in our bedding and relaxed together as we drifted off towards sleep, I did feel myself undergoing a final change, shedding the last remaining aspects of my Outsider hang-ups and past . . . most of them anyway. That butterfly within me was shaking the remaining bits of its cocoon loose. With a mate, a family, even a dragon son, as well as being fully embraced by the entire village as chief, I let it all go as my mate had asked—allowing her, and Berk itself, to fully claim me. I wouldn't look back.

Feeling hers more than ever now, I glanced at Roana as she lay nestled tight against me, seemingly asleep. I didn't know whom to thank for her, and all that she had done, and put up with, for me. I couldn't resist holding her tightly again and rubbing her back.

"Keep going," she murmured with her eyes closed, "however you want, for as long as you want."

"What would you like?" I asked with a gentle smile.

"You," she whispered. "Just you."

I went to sleep . . . sometime that night, snuggled tight with Roana beside Substance, with a smile on my face and even a few tears in my eyes—having tasted, even been enveloped by, heaven itself.


	26. Chapter 26

"Morning . . ." I felt warmly whispered in my ear, followed by a very satisfying kiss that involved my whole mouth.

"Ohh gods," I smiled as I instinctively hugged Roana tightly in our floor bedding. "This just isn't ending here from last night."

"We have to go to work," she then whispered in my ear.

"Work?" I sighed, with almost a whine now. "When do we get a day off?"

"When folks stop showing up to take care of Substance for us," she whispered, as I opened my eyes and looked up, seeing another family of human and dragon villagers in the boathouse with us, ready to care for Substance . . . with the husband and wife, or mates, already offering plates of breakfast to Roana and I while our three dragons were all eating raw fish that had been brought in for them as well.

"Is it going to be like this all the time?" I asked, still holding Roana in bed, thankful that these villagers didn't understand English. "I mean, they never did this to Roald and Árvekni, did they . . . their whole lives?"

"Árvekni never had a moment of privacy living in the caves," Roana replied, stroking my hair with a hand. "It's one reason why he was on duty and flying so much. There he had privacy. But Roald? Since he wasn't mated, he was 'adopted' by village matrons who kept him fed and clothed. They even took turns doing his house for him."

"This is worse than life in the White House," I sighed. "And yes, I actually spent a night there once when I was briefing the president on my work."

"Vilt þú afsökun okkur, vinsamlegast?" Roana now politely asked the villager couple as they compliantly exited off to the station's offices and crew quarters. "Enjoy breakfast," she then invited me. "It does look good."

I glanced out the floor-to-ceiling boathouse windows, seeing two Zipplebacks making fish runs just offshore against the spectacular green backdrop of other mountainous islands across the small sound we were beside.

"I have flown past this scenery so many times now," I sighed sitting up in the bedding as I ate my eggs and sausage. "But I've never just enjoyed it. I would love just a day off, to sit with our family and enjoy the peace and beauty here. Since you seem to be my scheduler, even my handler now, could you pencil in just a day here at the boathouse?" I asked Roana.

"I will," she smiled. "Promise. Let me get our clothes from the dryer though."

"I should do that," I said somewhat apologetically.

"Finish your breakfast," she smiled, giving me an egg-laced kiss on the mouth. "I got this."

"You're the one who's amazing, you know that?" I admired.

"We are just inescapably awesome together," Roana warmly assured as she laid her own breakfast aside, bringing a towel around herself and rising from our bedding.

I just watched her go. Even busy, rushed mornings like this seemed nothing less than sublime now, and Roana was why.

"Substance, what should I do for her?" I asked.

"That question will answer itself," my dragon replied. "Just listen for it, and act . . . before she does."

"That's very true," I smiled. "And how are you doing?"

"Meditating," Substance said. "I am not here at times now . . . stretching myself as Guardian."

"You're supposed to be leading with me," I noted.

"From all I am told, you lead well," she responded.

"I want you with me," I said.

"I am," Substance assured, "and I will be."

"You know . . . you did too much for me, in the battle," I admitted, wanting to confess that to her for some time now as I laid a hand on her neck.

"I loved you," she simply replied. "Love is always too much, for any of us."

I moved over and hugged Substance around her neck now, my skin against hers. "You're blind," I sniffed. "That is way too much."

"I see, and feel, all I want now," her voice said breaking as well.

I buried my face against my dragon's neck.

"I'll schedule that day off for tomorrow in permanent ink—no interruptions, alright?" I now heard my mate say behind me.

"That'll be fine," I said softly, still embracing Substance.

— — — — —

For today though I was chief, with things to do.

Roana just kept me focused, even to the point of dressing me—all while finishing her breakfast a few bites at a time here and there before it got cold.

"I think I can do this part," I said, feeling a little bit better as I slipped my outer tunic on.

"Enjoy it," she invited as she smoothed my hair and then reached for what was now my chief's cloak. "It's one of the perks of being chief, and having a mate."

"Thanks," I said quietly, finding mixed feelings were unexpectedly returning.

"Lance, my love, you're doing great," she assured as she placed my cloak just right on my shoulders, before placing her lips at my left ear. "If I was in your place, and it had been Rökkr who had suffered like this, I'd be a regret-filled mess right now."

"I'm not that far away," I quietly confessed.

"Lannce, sit here a moment," we both now heard Substance invite near us.

"Roana and I are going to have to have our whispers in a different room," I said as we both sat down in front of my dragon companion, while Rökkr and young Spring remained right beside her on the family bedding.

"Lannce . . ." Substance said, her deep voice breaking again.

"It's alright, Substance," I sniffed, breaking down myself now and just moving to embrace her large head, bandages and all. I felt Roana embrace me from behind as well. "This was your uncertainty though, wasn't it?"

"Had to face it alone," my dragon said, her sadness growing. "You could not share this. I did not want you to."

"You couldn't have aimed anywhere else but right for that bomb, through all that gunfire?" I sniffed against her, just letting my feelings out now.

"No time," she said. "Could not let so many others die. My blindness . . . worth that."

I just pressed my face against her forehead, just above the bandages covering her eyes, as tears flowed from mine.

"Lannce," my dragon said. "Take wraps off my eyes. They no good. Just cry . . . with me."

Roana carefully helped me remove the bandages to reveal Substance's now half-opened, lifeless and unfocused eyes. They still had visible cuts on them, even stiches. The irises had tears in them, and the once black pupils were now clouded.

I just broke down in regretful agony at seeing them. Our caregiving guest family had come back to see what was going on. I didn't care who saw me as I was now.

"Lannce," Substance said, looking vacantly, almost past me. "Lovve me now. All I want—lovve of this family."

"You have it," I vowed as I held her head tightly again. "Love from all of us . . . always."

"My back, it feel sun," my dragon now said. She was right as sunlight now came though the boathouse windows, falling upon her and Rökkr. "Could all of me feel sun?" she asked.

I turned my head and looked at Roana beside me. My mate quietly nodded, as she wiped tears from her own eyes.

"Of course, Substance," I said.

"Let's see if you can raise yourself up slowly and turn around," Roana now coached.

Slowly, Substance rose up on her legs as they quivered a little under her.

"Okay, turn to the left," my mate continued. "Rökkr will support and guide you on your right. If you can turn right around, we will lead you to the boathouse doors, where there is full sun, and you can settle yourself there for the day. It looks like it's going to be very nice out—hardly any clouds."

As Substance turned herself around, the day caregivers and I scrambled to pick up the air mattress and loose bedding and move it to the boathouse doors as we opened them.

"Come on," Roana encouraged beside Substance as the rest of us worked around them both.

My dragon made each seemingly agonizing step as she turned around.

"Don't have to do what you are. Can be on floor," Substance said to me, and the rest of us.

"Yes we do, Substance," I countered with love as I continued to quickly move the bedding around her, while my dragon walked her own length to where we had reassembled her bedding.

"Very good, Substance!" Roana warmly praised as my dragon felt the plush bedding beneath her paws and carefully lowered herself down again.

But then she tried to raise herself back up. "Need to go," she said.

"Go? Where?" I asked.

"Lance," my mate cautioned in a whisper.

"Substance," I was now able to smile, figuring it out at last, "just let it go, right where you are. I cleaned out stables in Manitoba when I was growing up."

"Not proper," my dragon replied. "Even when sick, dragons go outside caves."

"They do?" I wondered.

"They do, or try," my mate confirmed. "They do not like soiling their nests or sleeping areas. It's why we have to watch seriously sick or injured dragons carefully, and clean up after the ones who cannot move, even in the caves. Substance, would you like to walk partway down the ramp?" she then offered.

My dragon struggled to get back up on her legs again, but collapsed, almost roaring now in pain.

"Substance, it's okay," Roana now soothed. "No one thinks any less of you. We love you. Just let it come out, okay? We'll clean it up, promise."

My dragon continued to gently moan as she just had to relieve herself now . . . the first time she had gone since regaining consciousness almost three days ago.

"Mops og snjór skóflur eru yfir þessum hætti. Mops and snow shovels are over this way," I guided our day caregivers, as I showed them the boathouse utility closet.

"Substance," I said as I came around to her head again while the caregivers gladly performed the work of cleaning up behind my dragon, "remember in the journal when Toothless was injured? I bet Hiccup and Astrid had to clean up a lot after him that winter they spent in the cove. It must have been so normal to Hiccup though that he didn't even bother to write about it." I glanced at Roana as she gave now me a worried look.

"Toothless on sand floor—mess hidden, soaked in," Substance responded almost in annoyance.

"Not the solid stuff," I replied, gently laying a hand on her. "Besides, this cement has sand in it."

"Not same," my dragon grumbled at my admittedly weak attempt at humour. "Not too much bother?" she then asked, now turning her head slightly towards me.

"It's already cleaned up," I assured, glancing behind her, "and ready for you to go again."

"Not smell bad?" she asked.

"It smells like fish and the sea," I assured, "and I love both those things, otherwise I wouldn't be living here."

"Lannce," she said as the sun now shone fully on her face and the rest of her.

"What, Substance?" I asked, kneeling down next to her.

"Lovve you," my dragon simply replied.

"I love you, too, Substance," I assured as I warmly held her head from the side. "We all do."

"Go to work," she then said. "You late."

"You'll always be keeping me on schedule, won't you?" I smiled.

"Always," she pledged as I got up again.

I then remembered something I had yet to take care of. "Sonur, Son," I said as I went around Substance and Rökkr and knelt down next to our newest family member, "þú vilt koma met okkur, eta vera hjá Substance? You want to come with us, or stay with Substance?"

The young dragon eagerly barked to me.

"He says 'school'," Substance translated. "He wants to do school, with me."

"You up for that?" I asked my dragon.

"Nothing make me happier," she assured.

"Then school for you two it is," I assured. "En sonur, But Son," I then added, "hvat finnst þér um nafn, 'Spring' eta 'Vor'? What do you think about the name 'Spring'?"

He just smiled and nodded.

"He like it?" Substance asked, unable to tell.

"Hvenær okkur lítur eitthvat, Anytime we feel something," I now encouraged my dragon son, "Vit vertum at segja þat, svo mótir heyri, allt í lagi? We have to say it, so mother can hear, okay?"

"Já!" the young dragon barked.

"Heard that," Substance assured. "He like it."

"All-right!" I said gladly, while I now saw that Rökkr had gotten up and moved so Roana could saddle him. "Vit vertum at fara núna. We have to go now," I said to both Substance and Spring, reluctant to leave them. "En ek hef virkilega vel þegit tala okkar í morgun. But I have really appreciated our talk this morning. Mér lítur betur, og vona at þú líka. I feel better and hope you do, too."

The young dragon barked again in his own language this time, as Substance smiled.

"Thank you, Lannce, for bringing Spring into our lives," she said. "He is good kid, and deserves this family."

"He's _our_ good kid," I assured, giving her head a final rub. "You okay without the bandages on your eyes?" I then double-checked.

"What's point?" she asked with her deep dragon voice. "Sun feels good on face."

I glanced at Roana.

"She'll be fine," my mate assured, getting into our new family habit now of allowing Substance to hear what the rest of us were expressing while she now got up onto Rökkr's saddle.

"Gæta skal varútar, þú tvö. Take care, you two," I said as I hopped up behind Roana on Rökkr. "Sjáumst í kvöld. See you tonight."

I just held my mate tightly for a moment as Rökkr now took off and flew us towards Berk. "Gods I wish things were turning out a little differently," I sighed to Roana.

"I know, Lance," she empathized. "But we have a good family here. It'll work, just you see."

— — — — —

Soon, Roana and I were arriving in the village as Rökkr gently landed with us on the commons. Almost right away, people began to step forward and help . . . people that I hadn't expected.

"Sir," I heard behind me soon after my mate and I dismounted from our dragon. It was a Navy SEAL in combat fatigues. "Garrison and I are working out a rotating patrol schedule with the other six riders," he then reported. "With the other forces still around our island, one of us on duty for four hours at a time with the others available on call-up is enough for now, especially with that beach being removed as we speak. It should be just cliffs and water by tomorrow."

"But with the Norwegian MJK unit remaining behind," he continued, "we'll have a more lasting security arrangement worked out before long. Thank goodness the MJK guys speak English, and one of them speaks Old Norse, which Garrison understands. We're working it out."

"What's your name?" I asked the SEAL.

"Petty Officer Miles O'Connell, sir," he replied.

"And we have you for a month, correct?" I asked.

"Yes sir," he replied. "But don't worry, the other guys in my platoon can't wait for their tours here. We will keep Berk well protected, just as Chief Garrison would have wanted."

"I can't tell you how glad we are to have you here," I said to him.

"It's an honor, sir, to serve with these dragons," he assured. "The honor of a lifetime."

"Carry on, Sailor," I said with a grateful smile as Roana rejoined me, smiling as well.

"Yes, sir!" he replied with a salute, as I saluted him in return.

"Well, that checks one thing off our list," Roana noted as we put an arm around each other from the side.

"Just make sure our Dragons and Riders are okay with this," I cautioned.

"Are you kidding?" she replied. "They can't wait to start full knight training with these soldiers. And these guys will help. Our Dragon Riders and these soldiers will practically train each other. While I was organising breakfast yesterday, both the Dragon Riders and the soldiers were asking me to translate back and forth, as Garrison was giving his SEAL friends rides. Our riders were glad for the help, and once the soldiers had even seen some of their compatriots fly on Garrison, they couldn't wait to join in. We'll have the Norwegian MJK unit trained and integrated as Riders in no time. But we will just have to work with the dragons to get them used to the idea that they won't be bonding for life with any particular soldier, but they will always have riders to fly with. Something new for us here."

"I don't want any more Alltafs," I said with reservation.

"There won't be," Roana gently assured. "I'll bring Substance in on that when she's ready, and Rökkr could help with dragon counselling in the meantime. At least he'll be better at that than Árvekni was."

"Árvekni wasn't so bad," I gently countered to my mate's pleasant surprise. "And I think the soldiers should be trained in our philosophies, as well as in our tactics," I added.

"They will be," my mate pledged with a smile. "It's just one more thing I have to take on myself, for now."

"What about your medical work?" I now worried. "Roana, you're stretched too thin."

"We all are," she said. "We lost about half our human village population. If it weren't for the outside soldiers and medics helping us, we'd be sunk right now."

"How did this get so much worse than the World War II village battle?" I asked.

"That was terrible, too," she noted. "But the difference was there were only five Nazis with guns back then—airmen largely untrained in ground combat, with all but two of them having just hand pistols. True, there were four other Nazi pilot newcomers who turned against us, but they fought us with just flare rockets mostly. We faced fourteen Soviets on the island this time, all special forces, with submachine guns equipped with grenade launchers. They caught us by surprise, wiping out whole lines of Dragons and Riders around them with grenades and gunfire before we could even react."

"Are you sure my coming here was such a blessing?" I asked.

"We've been over this yesterday, my love," Roana reminded me as she kissed me. "Stay focused . . . on me, if nothing else. Our dead have been laid to rest—our regrets should be, too. This village needs us, here, now. Winter's coming soon, and there is a lot to be done, with fewer people."

"What do you need?" I asked, snapping myself back.

"Well, I need to be checking on the wounded dragons up in the caves before I lose the medical teams who have been working with them," she began tallying. "We need to be sure some of us are working the fields as it's practically harvest time now. We'll just have to put off restarting midday classes for the young ones for the time being, and there are scads of other things to be dealt with. Just stick with me and we'll figure it out as we go."

"Sure we can take tomorrow off?" I asked.

"How about you make a day of rest and reflection tomorrow a village proclamation?" she suggested. "We all could use it."

"I'll do one better," I decided. "Let's call a village meeting right now to see where we're all at, and what everyone needs."

"That's my Chief," she warmly praised.

— — — — —

With Roana and Rökkr by my side, I found myself addressing everyone down at the ceremonial area again, as naval corvettes and patrol craft could be seen crossing the ocean offshore in the background.

"Gótan dag, Good morning," I said. "Ek . . ." I then verbally stumbled.

"Just speak in English," Roana encouraged. "I'll translate. It's okay. Besides the soldiers and medics don't really understand our Norse anyway, so one of us should be speaking in English."

I nodded to her. "I apologise," I resumed as my mate began interpreting beside me. "I am still getting used to Norse. But rest assured, I do not want to be like King George the First of Britain, who reportedly could speak little if any of the language of the people he was leading."

Strangely, the crowd applauded me. I looked at Roana with curiosity.

"They're encouraging you," she translated back to me. "They support you, no matter how much or little Norse you speak right now."

"Why?" I had to ask.

"Because they believe in the leader they have chosen," she said, "and so do I. You are already better at this than you know . . . than Roald was. I mean it. He would mostly just talk to Árvekni and Substance, and to villagers individually. He rarely addressed the village like you are."

I looked down smiling, feeling humbled, yet blessed.

"We are all tired," I resumed speaking to everyone. "We have been through an incredible battle. There is much work to do, but fewer of us to do it. Yet the first thing I want to ask is for us all to take a day of rest . . . to heal, to refresh and renew, and to love those we still have with us," I said glancing at Roana. "In order for us to have a day of rest however, we have to plan, and to share the work. So let's tally up and prioritize what needs to be done today, so that we can rest tomorrow."

To my astonishment, the villagers briefly cheered, but then broke into groups, with dragons and the visiting soldiers and medics participating in the huddles as well, as best they could.

"Stay here," Roana counselled beside me. "They will come to us if they need anything."

A Norwegian MJK soldier in light green fatigues now came up to us.

"Sir," he said, graciously accommodating my English, "is it alright if our unit provides lunch and dinner for everyone? I can have food, good food, flown in if you give the word."

"Beats sending dragons out on fish runs right now," I noted towards Roana.

"We need to have our lost livestock butchered and either stored or used before it spoils," Roana then told the soldier.

"Already being taken care of, madam," he assured. "Mutton stew is already being prepared for lunch."

"Careful," my mate smiled, "the dragons will like that."

"The dragons have already been hovering around our canteen tent this morning," the soldier replied, "literally. We are presuming that a dragon portion is one of your bucketfuls, correct?"

"That's right," Roana said.

"I'll increase stew production then," he answered. "Several of the villagers are fortunately providing us with cauldrons and cooking utensils, so we should be able to keep up with demand."

"Keep going," I smiled, "and thank you."

"For what your tribe has been doing here in preserving our ancient heritage and these dragons," the soldier replied as he turned to depart, "Norway should be thanking you."

Tana then came up to us. "Ek og atrir munu byrja at koma í ræktun, svo Ívar og nokkrir atrir týndust," she said.

"We've found our farmers. Tana will lead the effort there, in place of Ivar, whom we lost," Roana summarized to me.

"Tana, ertu viss? Tana, are you sure?" I asked, concerned about her age.

"Ek hef verit at vinna á þeim svitum lengur en þú hefur verit á lífi. Einnig Tvö Höfut mun hjálpa," she answered, glancing at her ever-present Zippleback companion.

"She says that she's been working in the fields longer than you've been alive," my mate conveyed, "and that Two Heads will help."

"Þakka þér, Tana . . . og Tvö Höfut. Thank you, Tana, and Two Heads," I accepted with a smile and a nod.

It was happening, all around me, and all I had done was to say a few words . . . not even in the local language. Yet as I looked out upon the people and dragons coordinating together, even soldiers and civilians simply working out plans, "I am changing Berk," I said.

"Come with me to the dragon caves," Roana decided. "Rökkr, let's go."

— — — — —

Soon, the three of us were landing at the cave entrances up the valley, as Roana then led us inside.

"See this?" she said picking up a bottle of antiseptic near one wounded Nadder. "Or this?" she continued as she then held up a roll of gauze next to it. "Or that?" she said, pointing to an I.V. bag that was being drip-fed to another injured dragon. "We don't make any of these things here. Yet if we didn't have them, these dragons would be dying. I have been telling our people and past leaders for years that we are already dependent on the outside—that we can't keep it out or hide from it forever. But except for Substance, who didn't push things along with me for the sake of harmony, they wouldn't listen—and they certainly wouldn't talk with the outside. I had to do that for them! I just pray that you will be different now."

"It's okay, Roana," I gently assured, walking among the wounded dragons, and around one human villager who was picking up after some them with a shovel and wheelbarrow. I finally got beside my mate as she was just rubbing her eyes and brow with a hand, and put an arm around her. Despite what we had shared and healed together last night, I could see the stress of several days showing in her now.

"Roana, hún er at deyja," we heard behind us as she turned her head sadly.

My mate broke away from me, and went over to kneel beside a seriously wounded Nightmare that was labouring to breathe, as a Zippleback seemed to be sitting beside it, keeping it company.

"Þat er allt í lagi," Roana tearfully soothed the Nightmare. "Látit nú ganga, ef þú vilt."

The dragon slowly turned the gaze of its eyes towards her and softly murmured for a moment. Roana tearfully nodded, simply replying, "Já." She then began humming in prayer. The Nightmare closed its eyes and hummed with her, as did the Zippleback.

Soon, the Nightmare's humming just stopped. Roana simply lowered her face against the dragon's stilled head and quietly wept.

I went and knelt down beside her, just wrapping my arms around my mate. "It's okay," I whispered in her ear. "This dragon is free now, beyond pain." Noticing one of his wings had been shot off by machine gun fire, I added, "and he can fly again, too, the way he wants to."

"She," Roana sniffed between sobs.

"I'll learn, one of these years," I said gently with a kiss on her ear.

"She lost her mate in the initial attack," my mate continued, "as they flew in together to counter-attack. She lay on the ground, at the edge of the village, watching over his body, unable to move herself, for more than a day until we liberated Berk. She was brought back here by villagers, after being helped to at least see his funeral the first night. She was asking me to call to her mate in prayer with her, for him to come for her and take her with him, saying he must have become pretty deaf in Asgard for him not to have come for her already."

"We guys can be hard of hearing. But he heard this time," I gently assured as Roana sat up now next to the Nightmare, still stroking it as I just held her from the side.

"Dragons aren't cruel to one another," she added. "Only humans are." She collapsed, sobbing again against me.

I just held her tight, silently rocking her.

"A-And yet I want to deal with the human world," she wept. "I am so screwed up."

"No . . . No," I assured as I comforted her. "You're the sanest person I've ever met. You're in touch with your heart. Many of the rest of us aren't. But we have a dragon to honour here," I suggested, trying to help her to focus.

"Sorry she's so far in here among others," Roana sniffed. "She's not going to be easy to get out."

"It's what armies and villages are for," I assured, giving her a hug and kiss on the cheek. "The living here in this cave need your great love now, Roana. I'll take care of getting enough others to gently move this Nightmare out of here, okay?"

"I'm sorry I'm such a mess when I lose a dragon," she breathed, trying to recover herself.

"It's what I love about you," I assured as I gave her another tight hug, "that you care so much."

"I don't know what I would be doing without you," she said now looking at me.

"Same here," I said, giving her a kiss as I helped her up.

— — — — —

Before long, I returned to the caves with a veritable batallion of villagers and soldiers, fortunately some of whom knew how to move passed-on dragons onto wheeled platforms . . . namely use other dragons to help. Amazingly none of the wounded dragons close around the deceased Nightmare were stepped on in the process, and the ones in front of her were able to move out of the way, with help.

As we worked, I looked around at the dozens of wounded dragons around us that were laying on the cave floor. Most every injured dragon seemed to have another one, sometimes of a different species, watching over it—caring as best one dragon can for another. One Gronckle was even barking for the villager with the wheelbarrow to come over and clean up after the Nadder it was watching. It was all an inspiration to me, even a miracle. But to the dragons, it was just what community was.

The saddest dragon there though was an amputee Zippleback I passed. It had lost one of its two heads, and was just staring at the closed wound where its other head and neck had been. It was alone.

"Gera þú hafa a förunautur? Do you have a companion?" I asked.

The Zippleback motioned with its one remaining head towards the cave entrance.

"Út at fá fisk fyrir þig? Out to get fish for you?" I surmised.

The Zippleback slowly nodded.

"Vit þurfum þig. We need you," I encouraged, looking up at it. "Finna einhvern sem gætu notat ykkar hjálp, og hjálpa þeim. Find someone who could use your help, and help them. Notatu höftinu þessi en hinn helmingurinn af þú spara. Use that head the other half of you saved."

The Zippleback turned and lowered its head and long neck to me, right in front of my face. It then closed its eyes, nodding once more, and then nudged me—long sharp teeth and all.

"Þat er allt í lagi. It's okay," I gently assured the dragon as I carefully embraced it.

Seemingly revived with encouragement, the dragon then slowly got up on its four paws, turned to an injured neighbour whose companion was also apparently out fishing at the moment. The two exchanged grunts, and the Zippleback then began itching a spot on the Nadder's back with its toothy snout.

"Þat er hann. That's it," I smiled. "Mjög gott. Very good."

"Getur sumir ykkar koma hérna? Can some of you come over here?" I then heard Roana ask nearby in both Norse and English. "Þessir drekar þarft at hafa sár sín hreinsut og sáraumbútir breyst. These dragons need their wounds cleaned and bandages changed."

I wound up organising and leading the Dreki þvo Landslitit or 'Dragon Wash Squad', as I and several other men with strong arms gave wounded dragon after wounded dragon the best and most satisfying treat of a deep and satisfying overall scrubbing with sudsy warm water that most any of them had ever had, carefully cleaning the dragons' wounds as well while others re-bandaged them behind us. Fortunately, other villagers brought the mutton stew lunch to us all, including the wounded dragons.

Roana came up to me with tears in her eyes later however, while I was taking a breather after yet another strenuous dragon washing, as others were cleaning up after and otherwise caring for the wounded dragons.

"What's wrong?" I asked, standing up and taking her into my arms.

"I can't tell you how happy you're making them," she sniffed. "Some of these dragons swear they can't feel their wounds anymore, they feel so good. You're not just a 'revered one' among these dragons, you're beloved, Lance. They've never said that about anyone here before. Please keep doing what you're doing . . . it's the best medicine these dragons could have."

I just held Roana tightly for a moment. "I'll scrub you later," I pledged in her ear.

That got her to finally smile and laugh a little. "Thank you," she said.

"I am thinking that all the time now," I replied as we held each other. "I just need to be saying it like you are . . . so Roana, thank you."

We allowed ourselves to slip into another passionate kiss. Dragons began roaring their approval all over the cave passages and recesses around us. Roana and I both began laughing a little as we kissed. She kissed me even more passionately and brazenly, even unfastening my cloak and allowing it to drop behind me as she also wrapped a leg around me. I retaliated by stepping one leg forward and dipping her, all as our lips remained locked together. Now even the human villagers and soldiers were cheering and whistling.

With a flourish, I raised us both back upright again. We finally ended our kiss as Roana twirled to my side and raised her left fist in the air. "WOOOH!" she shouted with joy, as I looked at her, just smiling and laughing.

It was definitely a new era, even perhaps a new age in Berk now.

Dragons were getting into the spirit Roana and I were spreading together as two wounded Nadders near us, laying in adjacent nests looked at each other, squawked, and nudged. They had agreed to mate and bond on the spot right then.

"Ohh my sweet Lance," Roana sighed breathlessly at my side with her right arm still draped around my shoulder, "I have to get back to work now."

"So do I," I agreed, as my mate bent down behind us to pick up my cloak again. "Could we leave that off though," I requested. "I think everyone knows I'm chief now. It would just make the scrubbing easier."

"One of the people?" she asked.

"That, too," I smiled.

"Well, alright," she allowed as she folded the chief's cloak over her arm before passing it to a village woman. "Vinsamlegast setja þetta út af the vegur fyrir nú," my mate asked her. "You are so good at this—being chief," Roana then admired to me as she couldn't resist putting her arms around me one more time.

"_We_ are good at this," I gently corrected, before kissing her again. "But you're right . . . back to work. I've got a number of dragons yet to scrub—all before we run out of daylight here."

"I want you later," she sighed. "I'm sorry, but I just do."

"Later," I pledged with a smile before motioning for a Zippleback to bring the next buckets of heated water as Roana and I reluctantly let go of each other. Soon, along with a couple of soldiers, I was right back at work, scrubbing the next injured Zippleback as it just lowered its heads and dropped its wings, relaxing completely and sighing in utter contentment.

The joy, the sheer joy among everyone in those caves that afternoon . . . it was something I never wanted to forget, and wanted to repeat as often as possible.

— — — — —

At the end of a busy day, the dragons that were able to accompanied us as a group of villagers, soldiers and medics wheeled the deceased Nightmare all the way down the valley, through the village to our ceremonial area. This time, Rökkr led the funeral, humming in prayer. I didn't have to say a thing.

"Time to head home to Substance and Spring," Roana suggested after we had tossed our handfuls of the Nightmare's ashes.

"We can't have the injured humans missing out on what the dragons have been enjoying, can we?" I posed to Roana as we were getting ready to depart back to the lifeboat station on Rökkr. My mate just smiled, closed her eyes and nodded in agreement.

Soon, both Roana and I were going house to house, visiting our injured human villagers and giving them a similar massage and wound dressing as the injured dragons had received earlier. I didn't know who was happier . . . the wounded, their families, or those of us spreading the joy.

Viking song and mead just seemed to spring up as we went as well, with dinner being served in the commons amid it all. With no one delivering it to us this time though, Roana and I unfortunately both forgot to eat. We just kept telling ourselves, "Later, after the next house." Some of the injured were even following us on crutches to subsequent houses, just to keep singing and basking in the festive atmosphere, with the crowds growing larger in, and in front of, each house as we went. I decided to think of how we could turn this into some sort of an annual holiday tradition . . . a brand new addition to Berk's culture of sharing and mutual support.

But we left every last person and dragon in the village and on the island that night in the best spirits they told us they had ever known. Roana, Rökkr and I were surrounded by humans and dragons celebrating in roaring and song as we preparing to go. Berk was now truly ready for its day of rest, and so were Roana and I.

"Lance," my mate remembered as we were poised once again to depart on Rökkr, "we haven't even seen the inside of our house here since before the attack nearly a week ago now."

"Anything you need in there?" I asked.

"It's probably a ransacked mess after those Soviets," she sighed.

"Bet you it isn't," I smiled.

"How do you know?" she asked.

"Let's just make sure everything's okay, and then go," I suggested.

Roana and I got back off her dragon again, we trudged up onto the porch of our house, opened the door . . . and sure enough, everything was in place, and it smelled decent, too—no rotting food or fish.

"How did you know?" she almost smiled.

"I have faith in our village," I simply replied. "Besides, I just _know_ Tana and her Zippleback likely couldn't stay away from our house, knowing all that you and I are doing."

"Take me to our other home for now, Lance," she breathed, almost collapsing against me.

Getting back on our dragon, this time I sat in front on Rökkr as he flew us back in darkness to the lifeboat station, allowing Roana to just relax, almost snooze against me. When we got there, I thanked and relieved another family of villagers who had been watching Substance, along with Spring, through the afternoon, finding that miraculously both Substance and her bedding had been moved fully inside the boathouse again.

Roana was the one of us who was barely functioning this time. "Why don't you just relax here with the dragons?" I invited as the other villagers now left. My mate just eased down onto the bedding as Rökkr settled down with Substance and Spring as well, while I went to the station's kitchen. I poured out the last mead tea from a flask of it we had been using into a cup, quickly heating it in the kitchen's microwave while noticing that three casks on the floor nearby had been delivered—casks which hopefully contained more mead tea. Tired myself, I didn't want to heft any of them up to the counter and find out though, so I just took the one hot cup of tea I had and switched off the lights.

By the time had brought the steaming cup of tea back to Roana, I found her already asleep in our floor bedding, just curled up beside our dragons as they seemed to be sleeping as well. So I just turned out the boathouse lights, stripped both my mate and myself, and brought the covers over the two of us, allowing her to instinctively wrap herself around me for a satisfying goodnight snuggle as I briefly sat myself up against my dragon's shoulder, finishing the tea myself, before settling down to sleep with Roana.

"You did well," Substance murmured beside me in the dark as I soon rested my head on my pillow.

"You heard about all that went on today?" I quietly asked.

"I'vve been told," my dragon replied.

"Well we, or at least I, should scrub you then," I said. "We can't have you being left out of the day's festivities simply because you were here."

"No," she assured, "I had wonderful time with Spring. We talked about so much, I almost forgot I was blind."

"Substance," I now sniffed, suddenly finding myself feeling for her again.

"Promise me one thing," she said.

"Anything," I quietly but earnestly replied.

"I want to feel life," she asked, "as much life, as often as possible."

Being pinned down in bed by a sleeping Roana, I still reached for the side of my dragon's head with my free left hand. "You will," I promised as I angled my head upwards to look at her.

"And I want to fly again, with you," she added.

Flying on a blind dragon seemed like a daunting prospect to me . . . but only for a second. "We will," I pledged as well.

"We will fly . . . all of us," Roana mumbled half-asleep against my shoulder.

"Sorry to wake you," I gently apologised to my mate as I held her in our bedding.

"Anytime, any how, any way," she quietly sighed as she happily resettled herself against me. I just had to shift myself lower down beside her, draw her even closer, and give her a quiet goodnight kiss.

"Thanks for the tea," she added in a whisper, tasting it on my lips and breath. I just had to chuckle at that as I rocked her in our bedding.

As I faded out now myself, I recalled a favourite saying of one of my Canadian uncles on my mother's side. "How is a year built?" he would ask when I was young. "One day at a time."

How is Berk rebuilt? One day at a time.

And this had been a good day.


	27. Chapter 27

"Thank you," I heard whispered in my ear. "Thank you so much."

I just drew my mate tight in my arms, expressing my gratitude to her with my entire body while my brain endeavoured to remember how it worked my mouth. "Day off," I finally sighed, now stretching in our bedding. "Right?"

"Ohh yeah," I heard, before I was practically tackled in bed. "No flying to the island," I was told as I was now ravenously kissed, "no one here to watch Substance or serve us breakfast. It's just us . . . you, me, and the dragons. Remember what I wanted yesterday?" she asked as she continued kissing me.

"Yeah, I do," I casually smiled, letting Roana do whatever she wanted with me.

"Good," was all she cared, or had time, to say as I now joined in her passions . . . not like I had a choice.

"Well," I sighed as I just lay there, "I can tell you're already enjoying the day."

We now heard a helicopter approaching.

What Roana then said with frustration, just as she was poised to really begin enjoying herself, was not repeatable in either English or Norse.

"Ditto," I agreed with a sigh however. Rökkr was already rising to his paws, looking out a column of boathouse windows as Roana and I both sat up in the bedding and turned as well.

"They're on approach for the helipad here," Roana sighed, reaching for both our village tunics.

"We do have a phone here, folks," I said with some frustration as well towards whoever was approaching. "You could call us first."

"It's after Ten A.M., Lance," she noted, looking at a clock on a wall. "Most people are up by now. We have about a minute before they touch down. You want your cloak?"

"Give me the whole nine yards," I sighed. "To bad I don't have a Viking helmet, too, to hide all this 'morning hair'."

"Oh my gods," Roana then noted as she glanced out the windows again while we were each dressing quickly, "the helicopter has a royal seal on the side. It's from the palace in Oslo."

"The king?" I wondered.

"Usually not without a lot of advance work," she replied as we both stood up and dressed even faster while the black helicopter now buzzed loudly beside the station as it aimed for the helipad outside the office and crew quarters. "The immediate Royal Family knows about us, but they're never supposed to see us. The Defence Ministry are supposed to maintain a strict separation between us and the rest of Norway. Here's your cloak, my love."

"Roana," I said as she placed the cloak on my shoulders and came around front to attach the chain and make sure I looked as decent as possible, "I love you, and I so wanted to just show you that today."

"We'll get our time," she pledged. "Your protocol aide here will dispense with our visitors as quickly as possible."

I just took her into my arms hugging her tightly.

"Break on three," she encouraged as we both heard the whine of the helicopter's turbines die down.

"One . . . two," we both said together, " . . . three." We then released each other and went through the doorway to the station office. Roana was careful to close the door behind us as the dragons, two of them anyway, watched us.

"Unless this has been cleared by the FSA head or higher," my mate said, "whoever is in that helicopter is not seeing our dragons."

She then stopped at a locker and opened it. "Here," she said, tossing me a holster and belt along with taking one herself.

"You sure we need guns? With the palace?" I queried.

"I'm doing this by the book," she decided as she quickly cinched her holster belt around her waist and checking its weapon as well, all at a seemingly blinding speed. "They've messed up my morning, and I'm not happy about it."

"Okay . . ." I hesitantly agreed, not wanting to get on her bad side right now, and bracing myself to go into 'knight' mode as well as 'chief' mode.

"On second thought, ditch the cloak," she decided as we then walked across the office while I was still cinching my holster. "I don't want them knowing who we are, until I know just who they are."

I then quickly just unfastened and dropped my chief's cloak on a chair without breaking stride. Roana opened the door to the outside as two men in black suits were getting out of the front and side doors of the helicopter out on the helipad. Of course, they were wearing sunglasses, and had buds in their ears.

"FSA?" I wondered.

"Likely HMKG, Hans Majestet Kongens Garde," she replied as we continued to walk to the helipad. "Royal guards. Different service . . . Kan jeg hjelpe deg?" she then asked our visitors loudly in Bokmål as we walked towards them.

"Vi leter etter verge navngitt, 'Substance'," a third man said as he now exited the helicopter. He was half-bald with greying hair and was well-dressed, wearing a dark pinstripe suit. I presumed he was an important palace emissary of some kind—a 'Lord Chamberlain' or something, as the British would say.

"Autorisasjon?" Roana then demanded, her hand resting on her holstered gun as I watched from a couple feet behind her, placing my hand on my gun as well in precaution. Knight training dictated to never face a potential opponent side-by-side with a partner, but for one to stand somewhat behind the other, so that it was more difficult for opponents to shoot both of us at once, and to allow one of us a little more time to draw and fire our weapon in response.

The two security men then slowly withdrew leather holders, flashing their badges and credentials, while the pinstripe-suited man produced an official-looking letter with a seal on it.

Roana read it, and then seemed to relax, taking her hand off her gun. "Hvorfor vil du se dette Substance?" she then asked the three of them anyway, almost like Substance wasn't here.

"Vi har blitt informert om hvordan Substance reddet befolkningen i Nytt Berk," the pinstripe-suited man replied. "Jeg ønsker å diskutere utdelingen av en passende ære."

"Could I have a translation?" I asked Roana, now stepping forward beside her and not understanding Bokmål or the mainland Norwegian accent very well, having grown used to Berker speech.

"Doctor Hyse," the man then said, extending his hand, before Roana could answer me. "A pleasure to finally meet you, as Chief of Berk as well now, I understand."

"Thank you," I replied with uncertainty. "Forgive me, I speak Old Norse now, but do not understand your modern Norwegian speech yet."

"I was simply asking . . . your wife, I'm guessing," he began.

"Mate," I interrupted. "She is far more than just a wife, I assure you," I said, putting an arm around her as I briefly looked at her. Interruptions or no, I decided I was loving Roana today, no matter what. That finally put something of a smile on her face.

"Of course," the man replied. "I am here to discuss the awarding of an appropriate honour for Dragon Substance's bravery in saving the population of New Berk."

"I think she would genuinely appreciate that," I said warmly to him.

"I'm not so sure," Roana noted hesitantly.

— — — — —

" . . . so we would like to award you the Order of Saint Olaf," we allowed the pinstripe-suited man to explain a short time later directly to Substance in the boathouse.

"No!" my dragon barked, almost with anger to my great surprise.

"But Substance," I tried to soothe, now seeming to face a second tense, even upset, family member this morning, "they're trying to honour you for what you did. I believe it's the highest award in Norway, if I'm not mistaken."

"It is," the man confirmed.

"'_Saint'_ Olaf," Substance replied with contempt, "drove us here."

"Ohh, right," I remembered.

"How did you know if you haven't read the rest of the journal yet?" Roana asked.

"You," I explained. "Well the old you, mentioned something about that to me as you had Rökkr 'tag' Nidarosdomen that day we went back to collect my things at the inn."

"So it was you who bent the cross atop our premier cathedral some three months ago," our visitor noted without expression. "We had thought a wind did it, but we were puzzled as it was metal."

"_Lance_ . . ." Roana warned me in a hushed tone.

"Well, I'm not sure we actually _touched_ it," I tried to qualify, "and besides, Roana was hit by a Soviet memory dart that night, so she has no knowledge of it now."

"Do not worry, it was fixed some time ago," the man assured with a gentle smile.

"But Substance," I said, returning my attention to her again.

"Forces of that man and church killed thousands of my kind," my dragon growled, seemingly somewhere in between anger and anguish. "To take this Order would be to add my paw on the weapons that slaughtered them."

I sighed, realizing that ancient enmities and wrongs were not forgotten in Europe, with some that occurred hundreds of years ago being remembered as if they had happened yesterday.

"Substance," I now said anyway, kneeling down and laying a hand on her head, "I understand what you're feeling. Heck, I feel the same way about the Soviets who just attacked us. But," I then added, "I've allowed one of them to defect. He was even the one you and I picked up, who basically started the whole thing. Yet he now lives with Frelsari and Helga. If I can forgive him, and even allow him to dwell among us, could you forgive this Norwegian king, who had nothing to do with what was done to your kind? I don't think he is even of the same line as that King Olaf was."

"The current king is of Danish, Swedish, French and German ancestry, not ancient Norse," the man assured.

"I not take that Order," my dragon maintained.

"Substance . . ." I sighed. This was supposed to be our day off, but it was already proving to be a very tough morning.

"Have anything else?" my dragon then asked, seemingly in compromise.

"Would you accept the Gold Medal for Heroic Deeds instead?" the pinstriped man offered.

"Yes," Substance replied to my great relief.

"Anything else?" Roana chimed in, clearly wanting to get rid of our visitors.

"Well, no . . ." the man hesitantly replied, almost seeming to have been expecting to be invited to stay for tea or something—which I had been prepared to offer him.

"Good," she curtly concluded. "We have some classified activities to conduct here, which even you aren't cleared to see."

"Roana!" I now interjected, both shocked at her apparent rudeness, not to mention her seeming allusion to our intimate liaisons that were interrupted this morning. I then looked at her, my dragon, and our visitors . . . and something then just clicked in my head. "I think it's time to bury some very old hatchets," I said, turning to our visitors. "Would all of you and your pilot care to sit down on the floor in front of our dragons, Berker style, and enjoy some mead tea and sweet bread with us?"

Neither Roana nor Substance seemed very pleased now, but they went along as I took charge, first bidding our guests to sit down cross-legged on pillows facing our three dragons, as I then went to the kitchen, hoping that those casks on the floor in there were in fact mead tea.

"Lance," I heard as I was pouring a little liquid from one small cask into a cup at the kitchen counter to determine whether it was mead tea or straight mead, "I'm not pleased with you," Roana admitted, "but I'm not pleased with me, either."

I set the cask down on the counter, as I turned and took Roana into my arms.

"I am worn out, Lance," she sighed.

"I know," I replied as I held and rocked her tightly. "But our people can't afford this ancient animosity with Norway and its history, anymore than you say you and I can afford to let resentments linger between us."

"You're right," she sniffed against me. "You're right."

I kissed her forehead with understanding as I continued to hold her for a moment. "You helped make me into the chief I am now," I gently said. "I'm just trying to be the best one I can, calling the shots as I see them. Would you help me, please?"

"You learn fast," she replied, finally looking at me with a very tired expression, even though it was morning.

"Like my son," I smiled. "We both have some very good teachers in you and Substance."

"I love you," she sighed in my arms.

"I love you, too, and I will take very good care of you soon here, okay?" I pledged. "Just help me now. So let's break and do this thing together on three."

"One . . ." she laughed and now said with me, smiling, "two . . . three."

We then released each other and I picked up the cup.

"Taste this," I offered, "and tell me whether it's tea or straight mead."

She took the cup, and sipped from it. "Whoa, this'll floor them," she replied.

"Darn!" I sighed, wondering if the two other casks were all that way, too.

"I'm kidding," she assured. "It's mead tea, and it's good. Just needs to be heated."

"I am going to get you later," I replied.

"Give it all to me," she invited, even dared me, stealing a kiss in the process. "Every. Last. Bit."

I just turned and grabbed her, kissing her again, hard, and very nearly taking her right then and there in the kitchen. Roana knew how to appeal to, even trigger, my primal Viking side. And wow, was I enjoying being Viking now.

"Guests," I reminded both myself, and her, though.

"You're doing good," my mate praised as we released each other once more. "Sooooo gooooodd," she seductively breathed, toying with both of us again.

"You are _really_ gonna get it," I promised.

Roana just bit her lip in anticipation as we both forced ourselves to finish preparing the tea and sweet bread for our guests.

Even Substance raised and turned her head towards us as we returned to the boathouse space, sensing the energy and pent up attraction now flowing between Roana and I.

"I am sorry if we are intruding," the pinstriped visitor apologised as well, almost as if he also was able to pick up on the vibes practically bouncing between my mate and I.

"Not at all," I blithely covered as I now poured tea for them myself. "You have come a long way, and this is important to us. It's time for a new era and age."

"I am very relieved to hear that, Chief," he replied as he and his colleagues, even the pilot, began sipping their tea. "There have been stories in the past that even we officials would be captured, drugged and unceremoniously returned to the outside by your people who wanted nothing to do with us."

"I have heard that we did do that, a number of times, before World War II," Roana admitted reluctantly.

I thought for a moment. "I am thinking there is a reason I was born and raised on the outside," I said, holding my cup. "And moments like this, with you, may be it."

"The king would like to visit your people, and present this honour to the bravest member among you in person," he offered. "Just as we are making peace with the Sami, and redressing old wrongs, we would like to do so with your people as well."

"The world is not yet ready for dragons. But when we are recovered," I noted, looking at my dragon, "we will be ready to receive His Majesty . . . and forgive."

The emissary reached out to me with his right hand, smiling. I put my cup down on the concrete floor and reached back, grasping his hand firmly.

"Tell His Majesty thank you," I said.

"You just did," the man replied, "for I am he."

I was shocked.

"M-My apologies, Majesty," I stammered, almost wanting to rise and bow before him.

"I like to do a few things myself," he graciously added. "And Chief, given the history between our peoples, yours deserved no less."

"Would you like to go to our island?" I offered.

"No, thank you," he politely declined. "Not today. Your dragon, Substance, deserves to be there when I do . . . to witness my apology to her kind, when I make it."

"I was wrong, Majesty," Substance apologised.

"You had reasons, over a thousand of them, for how you and your kind have felt, Guardian," he said, gently laying a hand on her and seeming to address her with deep respect, as an equal.

"I wish we had a camera for this moment," I regretted.

"Do you think a head of state in this age travels without one?" the king replied.

As one of his security aides soon came back with a camera, Substance insisted on standing up and having me put her battle-scarred strap of office on her. I offered the king the place of honour between Substance and Rökkr, but he declined.

"I am a visitor in your lands," he graciously replied, choosing to stand off to the side next to Substance, and laying a hand on her, while Roana hurriedly smoothed my wavy brown hair as she and I stood in between our dragons, with Spring next to Rökkr.

"Would you mind if I shave him real quick for this?" Roana then nervously asked the king as she looked at me and several days' growth of stubble along the lower half of my face. "We are Vikings, but . . ."

The monarch could only nod as he did an admirable job of containing his amusement at the request.

"Stay," my mate simply told me as she then dashed off for some shaving cream or soap, soon returning with a can of foam she had found somewhere.

"That is some knife," the king admired as Roana then gave me the quickest shave around my goatee I had ever experienced, all while standing on my feet between the dragons. She even hurriedly used the inside of my chief's cloak to wipe the foam remnants from my face.

"There," she said as she finished while dabbing a nick on one side of my jaw with a wet finger.

"We ready now?" I asked with a smile.

"Yep," she simply replied as she then took her place between Rökkr and myself and turned to face the camera as well.

As the security aid was focusing the camera in front of us all, Roana slipped her left hand through my right arm. Without looking at her, I slipped my own left hand across my middle, intertwining my fingers with hers. The only things that were missing I later realized, were rings of commitment on our fingers—something I vowed to take care of soon, for both my Roanas, now remembering what the first one had ordered a while back.

I wanted everyone who would ever see this photo however to know that although I was standing with dragons, and even the King of Norway . . . I loved my mate first and foremost of all.

The official but top-secret photo taken of that historic meeting was also the first portrait of my family—Spring, Rökkr, Roana, myself, Substance, and the king, all of us standing side by side in the boathouse. Spring and Rökkr look fairly serious in it, while Substance has a fairly relaxed look, even a slight smile.

It is a picture I still look at every day.

— — — — —

"Your Majesty, again, I am so sorry for my initial reception of you," Roana apologised as she, Rökkr, Spring and I bid the king and his aides farewell outside at the helipad soon after the photo.

"You are everything I have heard about, Major," the monarch replied before reboarding his helicopter, "and richly deserving of the commendation you will be receiving as well." He didn't say a thing more though as he seated himself in the helicopter and his aide closed the door as he waived at us.

"Well, well," I smiled in praise at Roana as the helicopters turbines and blades now powered up in front of us.

"I thought he looked familiar, right from the start," Roana deflected next to me as we stepped back with Rökkr and Spring at our sides to watch the helicopter go. "But I thought, 'Nah, it couldn't possibly be the man himself.' I was wrong though."

"Would it make you feel better if you were 'punished' for that?" I asked, looking at her.

"Rökkr, could you take care of Spring and Substance for a while . . . a good while?" Roana now said as the helicopter ascended into the air and she practically pulled at me. "Lance and I will be in the crew quarters. And we don't want to be disturbed—no matter who it is."

"Já . . . ást!" my son cheered beside us. Now I was convinced dragons could sense vibes.

"Mjög gott, sonur. Very good, son,'" I confirmed without taking my eyes of Roana. "Já, ek er at fara at elska félagi minn. Yes, I am going to love my mate . . . so love her!"

And I started to, grabbing and kissing her hard, right in front of two of our dragons. Roana was moaning and roaring into my mouth even before we got back inside the building.

Mating as Berkers did was a good thing . . . a very good thing.

— — — — —

"I wish we could have fires here," I noted later as the sun set, after our family had all enjoyed dinner . . . with Roana and I having also enjoyed a fair bit more earlier as well.

"Dragons can make fires anytime," my mate reminded as she relaxed in my arms amid our bedding in the boathouse. "Substance, Rökkr, you want to move this out onto the boat ramp?"

"Would like that," Substance replied. "Feel breeze, fire . . . something."

"You feel us, don't you?" I gently asked as I rubbed my hand along her neck again.

"Yes, I feel you," she simply replied.

I just silently looked at Roana with concern as we and the dragons now rose from the bedding.

"I'll go get some wood from the shed on the back side," my mate offered as she quickly put on her tunic, leggings and leather skirt to go outside. "You just get everyone resituated on the boat ramp. It looks like a nice evening, Substance. Be right back."

I sighed, just putting on a long tunic myself as Rökkr and Spring helped support Substance as she rose onto her paws and turned around while I opened the boathouse doors, folding and sliding them to the sides. Once again, I relocated the bedding around Substance as she slowly walked out to the ramp.

"Might as well go while outside," she said as she now just kept walking slowly down the concrete ramp to the water's edge. As she turned back around, she stumbled though with her front right side falling into the seawater with a splash.

"Substance!" I said with concern as I dropped the bedding and rushed down the ramp to help her.

"Okay," she said with a little frustration as she snorted the water out of her nostrils, turning some of it to steam as she did. She then continued turning, positioning her back half in the water, seeming to try and preserve her dignity as she took care of the call of nature. "Don't need all of you here," she seemed to grumble, sensing Spring, Rökkr and myself close around her. "Got this."

"Okay, Substance," I said as I walked back up the ramp to finish arranging our bedding while Roana brought the first armload of firewood around the side of the station. I just looked at my mate silently as we met up, glancing with concern down the ramp towards Substance.

"How are you doing, Substance?" Roana asked, breaking the silence among our family now as my mate and I did our work at the top of the boat ramp while our dragons began slowly returning up it from the water's edge.

"Relieved," my dragon finally answered matter-of-factly as she slowly worked her way up the ramp.

"I meant how are you feeling?" my mate clarified as she finished rearranging the wood into a small pile while I finished arranging the bedding.

"Blind," Substance answered with equal bluntness again. "Helpless . . . useless," she added as well.

"Substance, would you light our fire here?" Roana asked without missing a beat.

"Likely to light you as much as wood," my dragon sighed.

"The wood is a metre to the left of my voice now," my mate replied. "You need to exercise your plasma sacs and muscles anyway, along with your lungs."

"You want wood destroyed?" Substance asked.

"A good blast is not a bad idea," Roana now accepted. "Just turn and raise your head hard to the right and fire one off. It will clean things out in there. Don't want creosote and residue building up and going off on their own, do we?"

"Yes . . . Doctor," my dragon sighed as she turned her head hard to the right as she was most of the way up the ramp now and fired off a strong plasma blast, almost with a roar.

The ball of bluish fire arced off into the night sky, briefly lighting up everything around it—the trees and hills around our station, even the inland waters in front of us—before dissolving into orange flames and fading out at the edge of its range. Rökkr and Spring then fired off healthy blasts as well . . . just because.

"All-right Substance!" I cheered as the other dragon blasts soon faded as well. "That was a good one!"

"Wish I could have seen it," she noted, now dropping her head. Our brief moment of family joy seemed to vanish again.

"Substance," I said, dropping to my knees right in front of her face, "I would have shared in all you suffered, and are suffering . . . if you had let me."

"No," she said, shaking her head while her deep voice seemed to falter in sadness and regret.

"Substance," my mate joined in, kneeling down beside me and placing a hand on her head, "a guardian doesn't bear everything alone. They don't hide things . . . how they're feeling, what they're suffering. You have a family with you here, more than Árvekni or Roald knew. Use us, relieve your feelings as you have your body. There is no shame in that."

My dragon now just lurched forward, resuming walking the final steps up the ramp towards the bedding. She stumbled as she encountered the small wood pile Roana had assembled, knocking it apart. My dragon now roared in frustration as she realized what she had done, angrily tossing more of the wood aside with her left foreleg as she now walked right over the bedding and back into the boathouse.

"Substance, stop!" I almost barked at her as she kept on almost marching across the boathouse floor and right towards a wall on the far end.

She kept going though, soon hitting that far wall hard with her snout. My dragon then roared, lashing out with her head even harder, knocking a hole in that wooden wall as splinters and even glass seemed to fly everywhere.

"Substance, that's enough!" Roana now snapped as well, as we both rushed across the boathouse space to her. "This family lives here right now. You're damaging our home, and making us cold!"

My dragon let out an ear-splitting roar, one that even shattered or fractured a couple more windows.

Roana then lunged towards Substance, wrapping herself around my dragon's large head. "Stop! Okay?" my mate insisted.

"_I'm blind!_" Substance roared in agony.

"I know, Substance," Roana empathized as she held onto her tightly. "I know."

My dragon now bellowed a heart-wrenching moan.

"It's okay," my mate soothed. "It's going to be okay, Substance."

"Don't know if I can live like this," my dragon wept.

Spring then courageously came up beside Substance, nudging her hard with his head against her right shoulder.

"There is someone here who needs you to, Substance," Roana said, looking at Spring. "He's lost too many in his life already. You don't want him to lose another, do you?"

Substance seemed to pause, hesitate now. Her moans and tears stopped, but she said nothing.

"I close my eyes, Substance," my mate continued, "and you and the world seem to disappear. But you and it are still there, just as we are here around you as well. There is blackness, you feel alone . . . but you're not."

Roana now raised her head and motioned for Rökkr and I to join in around my dragon as all of us touched her firmly. "We, your family, are with you," my mate assured. "You've been alone for years, but you have family now . . . just in time. And this is why."

"I am lost," Substance quietly whispered.

"We have found you," Roana said. "We literally found you on that beach after the battle. And we will never, ever let you go."

My dragon now just hung her head in silence as the rest of us nudged or embraced her. Then Rökkr began to lick her right side and neck . . . slowly, sensuously. We all felt Substance shudder a little.

Spring then backed away as Rökkr moved forward, tracing his tongue towards the more sensitive underside of Substance's neck, causing her to quietly weep. He did not stop though, but intensified his attentions on her. She compliantly drew her own wings tight against herself as he extended his left wing over and around her.

I glanced at Roana with some concern as the rest of us stepped back from the two of them. My mate just quietly nodded, reassuring me while not wanting to disturb the mood. Rökkr was now dominantly wrapping his mouth around the top of Substance's neck, gently drawing his teeth along it and almost seeming to gnaw on her. He didn't care who was watching him love his mate as he slowly took possession of her. He closed his own eyes, sharing her blindness, even shedding tears with her.

"Substance," Roana decided aloud, "the rest of us are going to respect the gift Rökkr is giving you. We'll be elsewhere in the station. If you need anything, just bark. Be a dragon now . . . be his."

Rökkr and Substance were already beginning to sigh and groan deeply together as Roana and I left the boathouse space with Spring. The young dragon looked openly at us as we turned a corner in the corridor and led him towards the station's roomy kitchen and crew lounge.

"Þat mun vera í lagi. It will be okay," I assured him.

"Já," he simply replied. He knew.

— — — — —

Soon, I was seated on a floor rug against the sofa, on cushions I'd removed from it, as Spring relaxed his head on my lap while I clicked through the available TV channels, aiming a remote at a TV mounted on the opposite wall, trying to find something to watch.

"You're spoiling us," I said aside to Roana, smelling not only mead tea warming in a large pot, but hearing popcorn popping as well.

"It's been years since I've had popcorn," she replied. "I used to have it in both movie theatres and college dorms all the time. It was my favourite snack food on the outside—it filled me up and kept the weight off, too."

"Trust me, you don't need to worry about that," I assured, glancing at her for a moment.

"You are an expert husband," she praised as the popcorn quickly finished popping and she poured it out into not one, but two large bowls.

"I'm a mate now," I replied, leaning back against the cushion behind me and closing my eyes. "I like that much better than being a husband. Being a husband feels so conditional—like something that can be broken or taken away from me if I do something wrong. That just doesn't feel like it will happen being a mate. I feel accepted, loved, committed and committed to . . . no matter what."

"You are," she assured as I felt a kiss on my forehead. "Here, hold this," she requested as I felt one of the bowls being touched against my chest. "Spring, hér er skál fyrir þig líka. Spring, here is a bowl for you, too," she now said to him, following my bilingual pattern.

"Corrupting him with outside influences, eh?" I responded as I opened my eyes and saw her placing a popcorn bowl next to Spring as well.

"He would be bringing us snacks of fish if we were relaxing with him in the caves," she replied as she now grabbed a couple more cushions off the couch and placed them on my other side on the floor in front of it, while Spring began sampling his popcorn. "But you don't like furniture anymore, huh?"

"There isn't room for Spring to sit with me on the couch, so I'm just sitting with Spring," I responded.

"He seems to like popcorn though," she noted.

"He should with all this butter and salt," I observed as I munched on a few kernels.

"Stop picking at just the top layer," she gently chided, snuggling up next to me. "You're supposed to eat the bottom along with the top. You're taking all the good ones there."

"We always pre-mixed it in my family growing up," I sighed putting an arm around her now.

"So what do we do in this family?" she queried, grabbing a handful of buttered and unbuttered popcorn from the bowl we were sharing.

"Your way sounds like less work," I offered with a smile. "Want me to get up and re-butter this for you?"

"Lance, Melanie was a fool to give you up," my mate gently stated. "I mean that. I can't see how you got divorced."

"As you saw early on at times, I wasn't always this good or agreeable," I responded. "You and the dragons have made a difference in me. But Roana, thank you. I mean that, too."

"Share some buttered popcorn with me," she invited as she then held one nicely yellowed kernel in her teeth.

I just shook my head with a smile as I moved in to claim half of that kernel. My delicious kiss was interrupted by a small bark however.

"We've corrupted him for sure," I said, reluctantly ending that kiss. "He wants more popcorn."

"That's not what he's barking about," Roana said, glancing sideways at the TV.

"Hhvvverrs vvvegnnna errru . . . ?" Spring stammered before lapsing back into grunting in Dragon.

"He's asking why they are hurting each other," my mate now translated as I turned my head to look.

I found I had inadvertently left the TV on what was now an old, black and white Three Stooges short with Bokmål subtitles. Moe was doing his usual slapstick corrections on Larry and Curly.

"This is one reason I don't want TV ever in Berk," I said, reaching for the remote, which had slipped off to one side on the floor.

"No, let's explain it to him," Roana gently countered. "With outside soldiers now among us, he and others will increasingly be exposed to this sort of thing anyway. He needs to learn about it so he can choose differently, just as you and I have."

"I would rather live in one place in the world where this sort of thing, even the knowledge of it, doesn't exist," I said as my hand nonetheless hesitated over the remote.

"That kind of isolation is gone now, Lance," my mate replied, "even for us."

"Spring," I said laying a hand on him, carefully composing my thoughts in English first again, "they are pretending on that screen. Þau eru þykist á þessi skjár. What you see there was recorded forty years ago. Þat sem þú sért þat var skrát fjörutíu árum sítan. Some people find it funny. Sumir finna þat fyndit. Some people are able to separate themselves from another, to laugh at their pain, especially when they know it is pretended. Sumir eru geta gjört sig frá ötrum, at hlæja sársauka þeirra, sérstaklega þegar þeir vita at þat er falskur. I hope you never will though. Ek vona at þú aldrei munt þó. Teaching that we are all one—that another's pain hurts us, too—is the gift that dragons, even you, bring to the world. Kennsla at vit erum, öll eitt—sem sársauka frá ötrum á særir okkur, líka—er gjöf sem drekar, jafnvel þú, koma vit umheiminn."

"Já, fatir," my dragon said, turning to me. He then just kept looking at me though.

"He's waiting for you to change the channel, or turn it off," Roana conveyed.

"Þú ert gót, Spring. You are good, Spring," I quietly admired as I stroked his head. "Þú ert sonur minn. You are my son."

The young dragon just nudged firmly against my front, as Roana took our popcorn bowl out of the way and I brought both arms around his head.

"He will protect who we are," my mate assured with admiration as she laid a hand on the young dragon as well, "just as we will, together."

Rökkr and Substance were now roaring loud and long in the boathouse space on the other side of the wall, reminding us all of what was truly important in Berk. Spring then raised his head and roared as well, as did Roana and I.

The TV just got turned off.

— — — — —

The three of us later tip-toed back into the boathouse space to find Rökkr and Substance seemingly sound asleep together. They were laying on the bedding on their left sides, with Rökkr having his right legs and wing draped over Substance. They could not be closer.

"Get settled with Spring into bed," Roana whispered to me. "I'm just going to check on Substance's abdominal scars . . . make sure they're holding."

I quietly smiled as I let my mate go as I sat down on our side of the bedding behind Rökkr, silently motioning for Spring to join me this time.

"Lance," my mate then said out loud, "we popped a seam over here. Could you fetch some wipes and suture needle and thread, please?"

"Three-eighths, Double-zero, with Number One . . . right?" I replied, stopping myself just as I was taking off my indoor tunic.

"You got it," Roana confirmed.

I quickly returned with Roana's field surgical kit from a storage locker out in the station's front office.

"Substance definitely had a good time, didn't you, Guardian?" my mate smiled as I passed her an alcohol wipe while I put on surgical gloves to handle the needle and thread with.

"Any time I feel bad," my dragon replied, "I have Rökkr mate with me. He promise."

Roana and I both laughed at that as I threaded the suture needle while she snapped on gloves as well before I then passed the needle and thread to her.

"Well you two go for it, anytime you like," Roana assured as she began sewing the suture. "I can keep you sewn up here as needed. Love is the best medicine there is."

"While you're doing that, I'd better get some plywood and a circular saw out to patch up the hole and fractured windows for now," I sighed as I saw the damage in the nearby wall from earlier, and got up to take care of it.

"Lannce, I'm sorry," Substance apologised as Roana continued working on her.

"Substance, if I had been in your position," I replied looking at the hole and fractured windows, "I think I would have done a whole lot more damage."

"Lannce . . ." my dragon simply said, clearly moved.

"We got you, Substance," I said kneeling down beside her head and laying a hand on her. "We all do. Never forget that."

Substance just remained silent now as I noticed Rökkr gripping her more tightly with all four of his legs from behind.

We were in this with my dragon now, all of us.

— — — — —

Soon, I was returning with small sheets of plywood and a power circular saw. Spring just came up next to me.

"Þú vilt hjálpa? You want to help?" I asked.

"Já!" he eagerly replied.

"Hjálpatu mér at mæla gatit og gluggum þá. Help me measure the hole and windows then," I invited as I then got Spring to hold the end of the tape measure in his mouth. "Dvöl rétt þar. Stay right there," I encouraged as I measured the hole in the wall with some room to spare.

A few moments later Spring was holding the final plywood sheet in place over a fractured window pane with his snout pressed against it, as I was driving home the last of the nails with a hammer.

"Fyrst fatir/sonur verkefni okkar. Our first father/son project," I said to him as we looked on our handiwork with satisfaction.

"Já," he simply replied. I increasingly had a feeling he was on his way to being the first dragon who would speak Norse. But there was still time to teach him English.

— — — — —

Finally, we were all settled into our floor bedding for a night's rest.

"We have to go back to work tomorrow, don't we," I sighed, holding Roana in my arms as Spring laid himself alongside us while Rökkr continued to cradle Substance on my other side.

"It's why we look forward to winters here," my mate soothed as she kissed me and wrapped herself around me. "Just idle snuggling and relaxation for days, even weeks at a time. Fall is just our busy time. Think you can handle it?"

"With your help, yeah . . . but just barely," I decided, looking Roana's way in the darkness as I caressed her.

"You want me, one more time tonight?" she then whispered into my ear.

"But Spring is—" I began to reply, before stopping myself. "Já," I then quietly responded.

"Oooo, Norse," my mate breathed as we kissed and moved closer together under our quilts.

"Ek mun gefa þér norræna," I assured.

"Every. Last. Bit," Roana answered between kisses.

I couldn't help pausing though and glancing at my dragon son next to us. Spring just briefly met my glance with one eye, before shifting onto his side with his back to us and just fading off to sleep.

"It's normal and healthy to him," my mate assured, drawing my attention back towards her. "Much better than The Three Stooges."

"Þú hefur þat rétt," I sighed in agreement and surrender as I then just quietly loved my Roana.


	28. Chapter 28

As Roana, Rökkr and I flew back to the village for another day's work the following morning, not only were all but one of the Soviets gone, but most of our Norwegian and NATO allies had left as well, including the medics.

The village, even the island, seemed empty now. The activity on the commons between houses was almost horribly light, and the people few. I could almost feel the ghosts of our departed still around. But this is what New Berk would be now as the rest of us tried to return our lives to normal.

"Come on," my mate knowingly invited beside me, "let's get to work."

Whatever needed doing, I would just pitch in and start doing it . . . whether it was farming, processing fish, or caring for wounded dragons or people. My biological research just fell by the wayside for the present.

"Lance, could you do some classes for the young ones?" Roana asked me one morning a couple days later while on her way to the caves for more medical follow-ups with the dragons. "They gather each day now where she taught them, hoping she will come back. They even hum in prayer for her, asking Spirit to make her better. It would lift their spirits so much, especially you teaching them as chief and elder."

"But I haven't read the full journal yet," I cautioned. "What do I teach?"

"Teach what you know . . . Doctor, Professor, even Colonel," she suggested. "With you mentioning everything from King George the First to Manitoba, I think among all that you will have more than enough to share with them. Talk to Substance about a lesson plan when we get home tonight if you like."

"Say no more," I smiled.

Soon I was stepping into Berk's seasonal outdoor classroom on a gently sloping, grassy hillside up the valley just beyond our village before a surprisingly large group of young dragons and children.

"Good day. Gótur dagur," I said, slipping into my crutch again of composing my thoughts in English and then translating them into Norse. "I want to assure you that your teacher, Substance, is healing, and will return. We just can't be sure how soon. Ek vil fullvissa þig um at kennarinn þinn, Substance, er grætandi, og mun koma aftur. Vit bara getum ekki verit viss hvernig fljótlega." I marvelled as I looked around how quiet and attentive these young ones were—better than even most any college class I had occasionally taught on the outside.

"Now, I can't understand Dragon. Nú, ek get ekki skilit Dreki," I said, deciding to be honest. "So I will rely on some of you to translate Dragon for me, okay? Þannig at ek mun treysta á sumum af þér at túlka Dreki fyrir mig, allt í lagi? But, for today's lesson, let's have one of you ask me a question. En fyrir kennslustund í dag, vit skulum hafa eitt af þú spyrt mig spurningu."

A young Zippleback raised its wing and grunted with both its heads. A boy then stood up next to it, and translated the question. "Hvers vegna hafa atrir meita þorpinu okkar og drepa sum okkar?"

That question chilled me right to my core. "Hvers vegna hafa atrir meita þorpinu okkar og drepa sum okkar? Why did others hurt our village and kill some of us?" I said as I struggled for an answer. "Come here, close. Komdu hingat, loka," I found myself sniffing as I looked down. I needed my students now as much as they needed me.

I just sat down right among them as they circled in close and sat down around me. I didn't feel like their teacher or chief anymore, so much as their guide, counselor and parent. We were one now, discovering the answer for this question together.

"They wanted me for the science I knew. Þeir vildu mig fyrir vísindi ek vissi," I decided to reply simply but honestly, not caring much about security protocols here anymore. These young ones, and everything around them, were a classified secret anyway. "The rest of this village was an obstacle to them, not important. Á hvíla af this þorpinu var í vegi til þeirra, ekki mikilvægt."

A young Nightmare now stood up among the group, looking at me with determination and grunting. A girl stood up next to him and translated, "Vit munum ekki láta þá fá þér, aldrei."

I just looked at them both now, with tears in my eyes. "No," I found myself sniffing in English, "I know you won't let them get me. And I will protect you, too, with all that I am. Nei, ek veit at þú munt ekki láta þá fá mér. Og ek mun vernda þig líka, met öllu sem ek er."

The class and I then dissolved into a tear-filled group hug and nudge. The brief but devastating war had affected us all. Each one of us, me included, needed to heal, and to reclaim and affirm who we were. That was today's lesson.

Soon, as I looked up after having embraced every last child and young dragon, I noticed two Riders and Dragons standing guard near us, one of them a uniformed MJK commando who seemed to be paired with a Nadder. Looking beyond them, I soon saw the reason why. Alexi, our Soviet defector, was working in a nearby field along with Helga and Frelsari. Both of them were a capable Dragon and Rider pair in their own right, but I spotted another MJK sailor watching the three of them, casually holding an assault rifle. His finger was off the trigger however. No one else was working near them.

I realized there was another lesson to teach here. But it wasn't an easy one, even for me.

"Komdu met mér. Come with me," I then said to the class, as I began walking across the grass towards the vegetable rows Frelsari, Helga and Alexi were working. Our Dragon Rider guards paced either side of us at the head of our group as I led them, and I noticed the MJK sailor with the rifle come to attention while maintaining his watch over our defector as I approached.

"Ved letthet. At ease," I directed, able to remember at least one command in the Bokmål I was now learning as I passed the MJK commando.

"Alexi, would you join us for a moment," I requested, to our defector's visible surprise. "How are you doing?" I then asked as he nervously walked across the furrows of dirt towards the class and myself.

"F-fine, sir," he haltingly replied in his Russian-accented English as he arrived in front of me.

I then reached and took his right hand firmly in mine, even bracing his arm with my left hand. "How are you really doing?" I then asked.

"No one but Helga and Frelsari speaks to me," he admitted, dropping his head. "Understanding is coming slow. I not speak Norse or Dragon, they not speak Russian or English."

"You knew this wouldn't be easy," I replied.

"Da," he acknowledged to me openly in Russian.

"Get ek lánat honum um stund? Can I borrow him for a while?" I asked, turning to Frelsari and Helga. "Þér er velkomit at taka þátt vit okkur eins og heilbrigtur. You are welcome to join us as well," I then invited.

Frelsari and Helga both nodded—the aging black Night Fury, Frelsari, with a determined gaze that indicated he seemed to both know and approve of what I was doing.

"Alexi, sit with us, right here," I invited in front of the young ones on the grass next to the field of vegetables. I noticed the young man was rail thin, but I knew his newly adopted family would have been feeding him decently.

"Can't keep much food down, eh?" I surmised to our defector.

"How you know?" he asked with some amazement.

"I can feel the distrust, even distain and hatred that surrounds you, Alexi," I said. "I wouldn't eat much with all that around me either."

The young Russian man now seemed to let down his guard some, finally being understood for perhaps the first time here in Berk. "I am so sorry, comrade Chief," he sniffed. "If I had just not pushed button in shoulder . . . we would have not attacked, just allowed you to take us away, try again another day when you here." I translated his words into Norse for the class.

"I know, Alexi," I then assured him. "But one way or another, one day or another, we would have been attacked, wouldn't we?"

"Da," he said, hanging his head in shame now.

"Why did you join us? Hvers vegna gertir þú taka þátt okkur?" I then asked in both English and Norse, for the class' benefit.

"Because . . . I kill your Árvekni," he said in his Russian-accented English, to my shock. "Grenade I fire on instinct. It explode in his face, in front of me. I saw him, noble dragon, die on ground. I saw people, dragons he was protecting behind him. I could not fire on them. I could not." Alexi now hid his face in grief as I translated every word he was saying into Norse.

"I could not live as before," he continued, "even choose past life, and live with myself. I had to be here now . . . work, even live as slave. Try to make up for what I had done to all of you, and to Árvekni."

"We don't have slaves here, Alexi," I gently assured as I reached over and took him into my embrace.

"I watch Árvekni die," the young man now sobbed, " . . . h-he look me straight in eye as he fell, with half dragon's face gone. He did not fire on me, but he should have."

I now closed my eyes in pain myself.

"Þessi matur er einn af okkur núna! This man is one of us now!" I barked sharply in both Norse and English, loudly, so it was clearly understood by not only the class, but also by the growing number of villagers slowly gathering around us.

"I cannot be," Alexi sadly countered, shaking his head. "I can only be servant, slave . . . hated. That is my punishment, my life now."

"You have to be one of us, Alexi, for all our sakes," I said, now looking at him. "You have to be equal with us, bond with a dragon for life, and become a Dragon Rider who protects us. That is the life you chose when you defected to us. Harmony and inequality cannot exist together. We cannot have a slave among us without poisoning ourselves, and all we believe in as well. It just can't be that way."

I now heard my words being translated clearly into Norse for those around us, by a sweet and beloved voice. Roana was coming up behind me.

"Please, Alexi," I asked as he and I both sat on the ground and I placed my hands on his shoulders, "agree to what I ask now."

"What dragon would want to be with a traitor?" he sniffed. "A murderer?"

"Þessi matur er tilbúinn til at mynda tengsl vit dreki, og verta Dreki Reitmatur! This man is ready to bond with a dragon, and become a Dragon Rider!" I loudly proclaimed, rising to my feet again, and helping him up as well. "I've made a decision, Alexi," I then said more quietly to him, "and around here, what the chief says, happens."

"Da, Glavnyĭ," he then accepted to me with a nod in Russian as he straightened up.

I knew the children and young dragons had learned their lesson for the day when they were the first to step forward and embrace and nudge Alexi in open acceptance. Our tribe and our ways were as strong as ever, I now realized.

The growing crowd around us then parted as one dragon stepped forward in answer to my call . . . the female Nightmare who had desired, even longed to be Árvekni's mate. The dragon began grunting as she looked straight at him.

"She says, 'For the good of all of us, I will bond with this human,'" Roana translated for both Alexi and myself. "'I saw what happened. I saw this man's face afterward. Together, this man and I will honour Árvekni's memory. He will live on in our hearts and spirits. This man will also have a mate, and a family, so that he has everything to defend and protect here that any of the rest of us do. This I swear for the Árvekni I love.'"

"This is the only kind of bonding, enslavement, we allow here," I said to Alexi now as Roana translated my words to Norse again for the others around us, "the mutual commitment of equals to one another. It must be your choice, but do you accept the terms of what this dragon pledges to you?"

"Don't know if I deserve this," the Russian hesitated as he looked at the Nighmare who now drew close beside him.

"None of us do," I assured. "I certainly didn't feel I deserved it when I was chosen, first by my mate, and then by my dragon."

"I am so sorry," Alexi apologised with tears to the Nightmare who had now chosen him.

"Say, 'Ek er svo hryggur,' to her," I encouraged, "and then nudge her snout with your nose to seal the bond."

"Ek er svo hryggur," he wept as he buried his face against the Nightmare's snout, just avoiding her long teeth, as she closed her eyes in both pain and acceptance as well.

Almost in spite of the heaviness of this bittersweet resolution, dragons young and old now roared around us, proclaiming another bonding. Slowly, human villagers took up cries of cheering as well while horns began blowing.

"I have dragon now, of my own," Alexi sniffed with tearful joy as he leaned against his Nightmare's head with his arms still around her.

"And she has a companion and rider of her own," I said with one arm around Roana now. "That is just as important to us."

"Spasibo. Thank you," he now said to both his dragon companion, and to us.

"We say, 'þakka þér,' for 'thank you'," I replied. "But we owe you thanks as well, Alexi. Your joining us makes us stronger. It's why I think Árvekni didn't fire on you. Dragons can see into us. He saw into you that day. That's why you're with us now, and what led you to join us."

Alexi's Nightmare now grunted at him.

"She's inviting you to come home with her to the caves," Roana now translated beside me. "But first, she wants you catch your suppers together, go on a fish run out at sea."

"Let's have a feast in the village," I decided. "But you're still going to help by going on a fish run with her, Alexi. Roana," I then said to her, "could you help outfit him with a flying jacket and gloves?"

"On it, Chief," she assured as she turned to go. "Stay right here though."

"Feast in the village for this bonding! Veisla í þorpinu fyrir þetta skuldabréf!" I then loudly announced as the roaring and cheering resumed.

Frelsari and Helga came up next to me as Alexi and his yet-to-be-named Nightmare nudged one another again.

"Ek vona at þú huga ekki þetta skuldabréf. I hope you don't mind this bond," I said to the Night Fury and woman.

"Vit vorum at vonast eftir þessu," Helga assured me. "Vit bara gat ekki sagt honum okkur sjálf."

"Ek er feginn at þú samþykkir. I'm glad you approve," I replied to them with a smile in both languages.

I then noticed my students were still gathered all around us. "Flokki vísat frá. Class dismissed," I said in both languages. "Fara hjálpa fjölskyldum ykkar. Go help your families." I couldn't help feeling proud of what had happened today, and couldn't wait to share it with Substance tonight when I got back to the station.

But there was one thing to be attended to first . . . a few things, actually.

"Okay, Lance," I heard Roana say as she came up behind me now, "I have his jacket and gloves, his Rider's harness, and the Nightmare saddle it attaches to."

"Alexi, are you ready to fly with her, as Dragon and Rider?" I turned and asked him.

"Now?" he asked with surprise.

"Among us, Alexi," I explained, "you become Dragon and Rider together the very first time you fly with her, especially as you're already bonded companions. It is our way."

His Nightmare now looked at him, almost smugly.

"I don't think she's going to let you back out now," I cautioned, trying to contain my smile.

Alexi now nodded and smiled a little as well as Roana first offered him a Berker flying jacket to put on, followed by a Rider's harness to don over it.

"Don't forget the gloves," my mate encouraged, offering a pair of sheepskin gloves tied together by a long, thin leather string. "Now, take this saddle. I will stand on your dragon's other side and help you position it, but you do up the girth underneath, okay? Make it decently tight, but not too much so. On her, fastening at the fourth hole should do it. This final part is done all in silence, as the bonding of Dragon and Rider is sacred to us. Then you just climb on, grip the saddle bars, lean forward, and that will be her signal to take off with you. Some of the rest of us will fly with you this first time, but your dragon will keep you safe in the air. Just trust her."

I now looked at Alexi, our newest Dragon Rider, one more time as he was fully dressed and holding his dragon's saddle. The look of deep gratitude, even joy, on his face was moving. I then silently laid my hands on both his shoulders, nodded once, and released him to his dragon.

To preside over the bonding of Dragon and Rider, especially over a forgiven former enemy, even betrayer . . . it was the most satisfying thing I had ever done.

After checking the girth as Alexi mounted his dragon for the first time, Roana came back to me. "Come on," she whispered in my ear, "we should be joining him in the air for this."

"You go," I quietly encouraged as the entire village waited for a now nervous Alexi to lean forward in his saddle. "My dragon is not here. I will join you all in the air on such occasions when she can as well again."

Alexi then finally leaned forward just enough that his dragon took it as a 'yes' and flew off with him. To his credit, Alexi seemed to remain absolutely silent. I would have expected no less though from a former Soviet commando.

"I'd better go keep an eye on him with Rökkr," Roana decided. "First fish runs especially, aren't easy. But Substance loves you for your devotion to her, and I'll make sure she knows."

"Have fun," I said as we shared a brief kiss. "But how come Substance hasn't ever taken me on a fish run?"

"It's kind of an optional initiation, for dragons who don't require human-assisted flying aids anyway," my mate replied as Rökkr came up beside her ready to go. "It's up to the dragon mostly. We felt you'd been through enough already, and it was one 'set-up' we thought you could do without."

"Maybe next summer . . . when it's hot, or at least warm," I suggested.

"I'll let Substance know, or you can," Roana assured as she climbed on Rökkr and they were off like a shot into the air together, joining other Dragons and Riders in celebration of Alexi's first flight with his Nightmare.

For the first time in a good while, I was alone now on the ground. Yes, there were a few old and young villagers and dragons around me, but Roana and Rökkr were off in the air, and Substance and Spring were back at our temporary lifeboat station home. I walked back down the valley towards the village, just thinking on all I had, and had experienced now . . . and being grateful for it.

— — — — —

Before long, a sodden but happy Alexi was returning onboard his Nightmare, who had a healthy load of fish in her mouth. As they landed on the commons though, an MJK commando with a rifle came up beside me.

"We have had him under twenty-four hour watch, sir," the sailor quietly said to me. "Do you want that to continue?"

"The dragon who is with him now is all the protection we need," I assured. "Discontinue the surveillance."

"Yes sir," the sailor accepted, then withdrawing.

Soon, the village was feasting . . . for Alexi and his dragon. We had embraced a remorseful enemy, and made him our own. As I watched him and his dragon drink deeply from the ceremonial cauldron of straight mead after most everyone else had, I had forgotten to ask if he had had that electronic device removed from his shoulder. I imagined that Ran had already taken care of it, but the question nagged a little at me.

"Alexi!" I called to him when he finally withdrew his head from the cauldron.

"Daaaa, Gllaaavvnyĭĭ," he happily slurred, trying to salute me as I approached.

"What is your last name?" I asked instead.

"Ivarovich, sirrr," he managed to reply in English.

"Hmmm, 'Son of Ivar,'" I mused. "You might be Viking after all."

"I am now, sir," he replied more soberly, " . . . thanks to you. But Chief," he then asked, "why you not fly with me today?"

"Because my dragon is recovering from her injuries and cannot fly right now," I replied. "Out of respect and love for her, I will wait until she can again."

"But you fly to station each night," he noted.

"To be with her," I said, "until she can come and live here again."

"So you would not fly with me?" he wondered. "On my dragon?"

"No, I don't think so," I declined. "She's your dragon now, Alexi. The only one you should be sharing her with is your future mate. Dragons aren't just rides here . . . they're companions, partners, even family."

"Understood, Chief," he said, seeming somewhat disappointed.

"Carry on, Dreki Reitmatur," I said.

"Da, Glavnyĭ," he now saluted smartly in the best Soviet military fashion. I could even accept this from him now.

I saluted him in return, and turned to go. I was ready to go home—it had been a long day now.

"Chief," Alexi called behind me again though in English, "I have device out with Doctor Ran tomorrow. Have not touched it though, even when washing. Had to wear harness here at angle to avoid hitting button tonight."

"Would you and Doctor Ran give that to the MJK for analysis when it comes out?" I requested.

Alexi seemed to hesitate for a moment. "Yes, I will, Chief," he then assured.

"Very well," I said, turning again to rejoin Roana. "I'll leave it to you . . . Dragon's honour."

There was no such phrase before that moment in Berk . . . but I felt it made the point I wanted to.

"You ready to go home?" I now heard beside me.

"Magic words," I smiled. "You read my mind."

"The best mates do that," Roana assured. "Good job today though, Chief. Very good."

"Thanks," I smiled.

As we both watched Alexi and his dragon fly off to the nest in the caves they would call home together, for at least a while—I realized that the Russian surname Ivarovich would now be added among the Norse names of Berk clans and houses going forward.

Despite how this had come to be . . . it felt good.

— — — — —

Soon, Roana, Rökkr and I were back at the lifeboat station. Substance was quiet, and Spring was watching her with concern, glancing at me and almost asking with his eyes for me to make her better.

I decided not to tell her that I had taught her class today, sensing that would only make her feel worse.

Roana and Rökkr just quietly organised supper for us all, her for me in the kitchen, and him making a fish run for the dragon side of our family. Everything seemed to be in silence tonight. No one seemed to want to talk. There was just a pervading sense of emptiness and loss among us, even though we were thankfully all here.

Sometimes, when you think a thing is resolved, the next day you find it still isn't. That's the way it seemed to be with Substance's blindness now. She was just there this evening, breathing quietly, hardly moving. The rest of us respected what she was feeling, what she was going through . . . enough so that we didn't try and falsely cheer her up tonight. Instead, we were just there for her . . . gathered around her, touching her, silently showing her that we loved her.

After dimming the space down to just a couple lights, Roana simply sat down beside me as I leaned against Substance after our dinner. My mate then nestled close against me. I put my arms around her as I tried to keep from tearing up again over what had happened to my dragon.

Roana and I fell asleep that way — fully clothed and sitting up . . . although I did feel her later laying me down and covering us both with a quilt before she resettled herself against me.

Hopefully, tomorrow would be a better day.

— — — — —

The next morning Roana, Rökkr and I returned for another day of work on the island. I kissed my mate as we parted in the village, and she and Rökkr flew off on vet rounds. Before long, I saw Ran approaching me, and felt doubly reassured about trusting Alexi.

"Hvar er Roana?" he asked though.

"Where is Roana?" I repeated. "Af hverju viltu at sjá hana? Why do you want to see her?"

"Þar sem ek vil vera viss um at þú skiljir hvat ek segi þér," he quietly but urgently replied.

"What do you want to tell me?" I wondered with surprise, before remembering to add, "Hvat viltu segja mér?" in Norse.

He just silently looked at me now, seeming to just wait and not wanting to say anything more to me until we had found Roana.

"Þat er löng ganga upp at drekanum hellar. It's a long walk up to the dragon caves," I sighed though, looking up the valley from the village.

I then saw an independent Zippleback flying low over the commons, presumably on his way out to sea for a fish run. "Dreki! Dragon!" I yelled up to him. "Vilt þú taka okkur til hellar? Would you take us to the caves?"

I found myself more than a little amazed when the dragon simply banked back around hard and landed in front of the two of us, seeming more than glad to accommodate my request.

Soon, Ran and I were landing on the Zippleback at the dragon caves and found my mate, hard at work checking on some recovering dragons.

"Roana," Ran and I both said together. Now I was really surprised by his urgency as she rose and walked over to us near the entrance.

"Hvat um þetta," she said in Norse, folding her arms in apparent amusement as she stopped in front of us both, "sjá núverandi og fyrrverandi elskhugi minn saman. Hvat mun gerast næst?"

"Funny," I sighed with a little sarcasm to her quip about both her current and former lovers coming to see her. "But Ran has something urgent to tell me through you. He wants to make sure I understand for some reason."

Ran began speaking rapidly, in detailed Norse sentences. He was right about me not quite following them, especially as he was occasionally slipping in some terms in what seemed like Bokmål that I was completely unfamiliar with. I also did not like Roana's expressions as she was hearing all this.

"Okay," I interjected at one point, "so you don't forget any important details, how about cluing me in on what he's said so far."

"Lance," my mate responded as she glanced at him, "Ran has attempted to remove the device from Alexi's shoulder as we wanted."

"What do you mean 'attempted'?" I wondered.

"An MJK field medic was assisting him, and checked the device out even before they cut any wires," Roana replied.

"Wires?" I now asked with concern. "To where?"

"The medic was soon able to determine and tell Ran that this device could have been the one that triggered the bomb," she continued without directly answering my question.

"Probably any of them could have triggered it," I said, albeit with some reservation now, "likely through a short series of pushes on any of the buttons in them, perhaps Morse Code."

Roana asked Ran a rapid-fire question or two, and he answered back.

"He says that this device matched others the MJK and FSK soldiers found not only in, but with, the Soviets when they were captured," my mate relayed. "These shoulder devices operated on the same frequency as back up bomb triggers they also found with the enemy. One of the shoulder devices was used to trigger that bomb."

"That doesn't surprise me," I replied. "And it shouldn't surprise you either, Major," I pointedly added.

"Ran also found wires leading elsewhere in Alexi's body," Roana now added. "He couldn't safely remove them on his own, but tried to trace them with a sonogram device he normally uses for pregnancies."

"Where did they lead?" I repeated.

"One went to what looks to him like a battery embedded near the heart," she replied. "A couple others went up into his head. Ran has found what seems to be a micro transceiver array just under his scalp."

Roana and Ran talked briefly again.

"Lance, there's more," she then said, turning back towards me.

"What else?" I urgently wondered.

"In his right arm," my mate replied. "There is a small vial of liquid, with thin tubes leading to small needles emerging under the nails of the first and second fingers on the right hand. Ran squeezed a small amount out from the fingers and he and the MJK medic ran some quick tests. It's a paralytic neurotoxin the MJK are familiar with, designed to disable a victim for hours, possibly days, but without memory loss. And there was one more thing. Ran couldn't make out what he was seeing, so he had the MJK medic take a look. Alexi was given another sedative and isolated alone in the bunker after that."

I just looked at her now without saying a word.

"It was a single larger vial, with wires running to it," she said. "The MJK say it's a small but powerful liquid bomb of some kind—one that might be triggered by a message received through that micro-antenna in his scalp. It was all wired through that device in his shoulder. Once he saw all this, Ran felt he couldn't safely remove or isolate any of it. The MJK are setting up jamming signals around him to prevent those devices from receiving any remote messages, and report there was no Soviet satellite or aerial activity around the island while you were with Alexi yesterday."

"Do you think he knows?" I asked. "Because operatives normally aren't as good actors as he was with me yesterday. He seemed genuinely remorseful to me."

"Alexi himself may be, Lance," Roana agreed. "But with just the right coded message beamed to him, it could trigger perhaps other subconscious conditioning or programming, making him an entirely different person, even an automaton, who could be intended to lure you away from the island on dragons, and then kill you, or more likely kidnap or disable you for others to pick up."

Alexi's disappointment at me not flying with him last night did give me pause now.

"I thought the Soviets gave him up a little too casually," she added.

That swung me back though. "See?" I then pointed out. "Operatives aren't very good actors. That makes me believe in Alexi."

"He could have been conditioned to want to defect," my mate countered, "to plant himself with us, and get close to you."

"He's one of us," I said to myself now as much as to her.

"He may not be, Lance," she cautioned.

"But what about his dragon?" I then asked.

"Ran says he left her waiting for him, outside the bunker," my mate replied. "He couldn't tell her all that was going on though, but she's likely deducing something is up from all the MJK activity in and around the bunker. But the MJK are debating with higher-ups in the Defence Ministry in Oslo, as well as with NATO H.Q., as to whether to move him under sedation for examination in Oslo, try operating on him here, or even preemptively detonating him before the Soviets might try to."

"No!" I said.

"Lance, he's a human bomb, not to mention an incapacitating weapon," Roana pointed out. "His mission, conscious or not, was to get to you, and either kidnap or incapacitate you, or kill you and possibly the rest of us."

"He could have been blown up remotely practically the moment he confirmed with an itch on that button he had found me!" I said forcefully.

"They wanted to capture you, and your knowledge, alive!" my mate countered.

"His dragon is bonded to him in the old way now," I warned. "It will be another Alltaf situation if we don't save him."

"Now you want to _save_ him?" Roana responded with surprise. "The night he defected, you wanted to turn him away."

"I've looked the man in the eyes!" I countered. "He's genuine. He is one of us. I can't turn him away now, or just blow him up!"

Roana looked beyond me to the cave entrance. I heard a dragon's murmur behind me . . . a sad one.

"It's Alexi's dragon," my mate said as I turned around to look at the Nightmare. "She says she knows something is wrong with Alexi . . . and she asks you, all of us, to help him."

"Tell her the truth about what has been discovered within him," I instructed. "But then ask her what she sees in his heart. Is he one of us, or is he out to betray us?"

Roana walked to the Nightmare, grunting in detail as she went, finally laying a supportive hand on the dragon as she arrived next to her. The Nightmare closed her large eyes in pain and lowered her head.

I now walked to join beside the dragon as well. The Nightmare then opened her eyes, looking directly at me and grunting.

"She says, 'His heart is pure,'" Roana conveyed. "'He is one of us. I sense no deception in him, either last night or this morning. If he has to die, he will not do so alone. I will be with him. I will even fly him safely away to be killed in the air if necessary. I am his dragon now. The bond has been made. It is a sacred promise, and will not be broken.'"

"Alltaf," I quietly sighed to myself as I rubbed my brow, almost appealing for his help as I now saw a double tragedy unfolding before me.

An MJK Dragon Rider now showed up on a Nadder. I sensed he wasn't bringing good news.

"Sir," he said in English, "the Defence Ministry in Oslo requests that we evacuate the defector from this island. They say it is too dangerous for him to remain here. They are flying an explosive-resistant container for him below a heavy-lift helicopter. It should be here within an hour."

"I want to see Alexi first," I said, looking nowhere in particular.

"But sir, you are his presumed target," the MJK Rider cautioned.

"You've set up jamming around the bunker, correct?" I asserted.

"But we can't be sure the coverage is complete, or even sufficient," the sailor responded.

"I will be seeing a man we've accepted as one of our own," I decided, "and so will his dragon. Roana, tell her to take me to Alexi, now."

Roana grunted as the Nightmare turned and nudged me in gratitude, briefly closing her eyes. Now I knew I was doing the right thing as I climbed aboard her saddle while Roana called for Rökkr.

— — — — —

Soon we were at the closed bunker doors as the entire MJK platoon stationed on our island were now surrounding them at a distance.

"Sir," their commander interceded, trying to stop me as I dismounted from Alexi's dragon.

"I know what I'm doing, Orlogskaptein," I assured. "Let me, and this dragon pass."

"Yes sir," the officer reluctantly accepted.

"I'm coming, too," Roana chimed in behind me. "Neither you nor Alexi speak Dragon."

My mate, the Nightmare and I now walked past the cordon of MJK sailors. Both Roana and I opened the bunker's heavy wooden doors wide so the dragon could enter, while Rökkr agreed with just a nod from Roana to remain safely outside at a distance. Both Substance and Spring needed one of us left if anything did happen.

"Chief . . . what is going on?" we heard from the examination table within the bunker.

I took a deep breath as Roana and I closed the bunker doors behind us. We then joined the Nightmare as we all walked over to the table Alexi was lying on.

"Alexi," I said, "do you know about what's inside you?"

"Device in my shoulder?" he replied. "Da."

"What does it do, in full?" I asked.

"It is communications device," he replied. "It makes other devices in others' shoulders vibrate when button is pressed. We can communicate in Morse or other simple codes that way with minimal risk of detection."

"What else does it do?" I asked.

"I . . . don't know," he answered nervously now.

"Dreki, er hann at segja sannleikann?" I now asked the Nightmare in Norse alone. "Are you sure you know nothing more?" I then asked Alexi, somewhat nervous that if he could consciously trigger the bomb inside him, he just might.

Alexi's Nightmare now looked at him intently, as he now looked at her. He then reached up for her, caressing her snout.

"Did you know your button could trigger the bomb in the village?" I pressed.

"I had not been briefed or trained on that. What is going on?" he asked with fear now in his eyes.

"Hann veit ekkert meira," I concluded in Norse to both Roana and the dragon.

The Nightmare grunted as she continued looking at her companion.

"She agrees," Roana now said in English.

"What is it?" Alexi repeated urgently as he lay on the table in front of us.

"Alexi, do you know about other implants inside of you?" I asked.

"No," he now said with a look of growing fear, almost panic as he shook his head on a pillow. "What did they do to me?"

"Stay with him," Roana now said. "I'll try and assemble a team to operate, even lead it myself if I have to. But tell him," she said as she then departed.

"Alexi," I then said as his dragon gently nudged him supportively, "we found several other devices in you . . . some possibly meant to harm us, even perhaps me."

"No," he said, tearfully shaking his head.

"Alexi," I replied, "we believe in you. We're going to save you, disabling and removing those devices as best we can."

"No, you must destroy me," he sadly insisted. "Before they set me off, or trigger me, even to change. From what you say, I know now what they did. Leave. Blow this place up, with me here."

"We can't do that, Alexi," I said, gripping his right hand that contained the venomous barbs, as a precaution as much as to reassure him, "our archives are on the other side of that door over there, and even I can't convince your dragon to leave your side now. She's bonded with you, she's yours . . . and she loves you enough to die with you if she has to. That, too, is our way."

Alexi looked again at his Nightmare, caressing her toothy snout as she gazed at him. "Save her then . . . save both of us," he asked.

"We will, Alexi," I assured. "Spirit and God help us, we will."

"Lance," Roana then said, opening one of the bunker doors again, "the helicopter is landing outside. Guys in bomb suits are getting out. The MJK says they have orders to take him."

"You have your surgical team?" I asked.

"Just me and one MJK medic so far who's prepared to violate orders," she replied. "Ran refuses to help. I am so glad I didn't marry that coward."

"It's time for your chief to go to work for you, Alexi," I assured with a smile, giving him a gentle pat on his good shoulder away from the device on his other side. "Your dragon will not part from you now. We've got you . . . and we're not letting go, okay?"

Alexi could only give me a tearful smile.

"I'll be back," I assured, "to assist in your surgery, if nothing else. Stay here and prep him, Roana," I then instructed. "I'll handle things outside."

I then emerged through the bunker doors to be greeted by a half dozen commandos in heavily padded grey bomb disposal suits. "Stand down," I directed, "that's a direct order from me as Chief of Berk, as well as a colonel in U.S. and Allied intelligence."

"Sir," one bomb-suited soldier replied, "we have orders . . . direct from the Chief of Defence in Oslo."

"Get me Brigader Husa on a secure channel, now," I directed.

— — — — —

A short time later I was opening a bunker door again. "No more volunteers, eh?" I noted as I reentered the clinic and shut the door behind me.

"Just me, sir," the MJK field medic replied. "But I'm familiar with these types of implants. We may not be able to remove all of them, but I believe I can neutralize them."

"I've cleared your activity with us through Brigader Husa," I assured the medic. "Sorry, but your court marshal has been cancelled now."

"Thank you, sir," the platoon medic now replied through his surgical mask.

"Do what you have to," Alexi requested from the table, "whatever it is. And Chief, thank you for believing in me. No one ever has before . . . not like this."

"Thank your dragon," I deflected. "She believed in you before any of the rest of us did today."

"She watched over me . . . last night," he said as Roana now placed an anesthetic mask over his mouth. "She surrounded me . . . kept me warm . . ."

"He's out. Patient vitals are stable," Roana reported, checking the monitors beside Alexi now. "Well," she then invited the medic as I quickly donned a surgical mask, scrubs and gloves as well while the Nightmare watched us all, "it's your territory, what do we tackle first here?"

With the MJK medic leading our team, we first opened an incision in Alexi's midsection to carefully examine the power supply just below Alexi's heart.

"Let's check on the bomb device in the abdomen," our medic said, now deciding to change course, as he then made another incision, this time further down in Alexi's abdomen.

"Hmmm," he seemed to muse as he slowly looked and even poked around something that just might blow us all up. "Okay, let's cut the power supply first," he decided, going back to the original incision in Alexi's chest and now carefully clipping all the wires from the battery device and removing it, before we then proceeded to remove the bomb device from the other incision.

"Be very careful with this, sir," the medic cautioned as he passed the bomb mechanism itself to me, complete with its vial of presumably very explosive liquid.

"I should be taking that," Roana volunteered.

"No, you shouldn't," I countered as I then very carefully turned and walked it over to the bunker doors, slowly opening one of them as I held the relatively small device in my left hand.

"Bomb guys," I then said to heavily padded soldiers outside, not knowing what else to call them, certainly in Bokmål anyway. "Here, make yourselves useful and neutralize this."

They first said something unintelligible, presumably in Bokmål, as they put their padded helmets back on. Whatever it was, it did not seem like happy talk.

"How long has that been disconnected from the power source?" one of them then asked me, his voice fairly muffled within his helmet.

"Couldn't tell you," I said. "Honestly wasn't paying attention to that detail, but perhaps fifteen, twenty minutes or so."

"These sometimes have independent trigger timers if the primary power source fails," the other picked up as the first of them carefully took the device out of my hands, and very carefully but quickly walked it towards the bomb-resistant spherical container the helicopter had brought. "We are surprised Steinar didn't tell you that."

"I'll point that out to him," I tried to blithely say turning back, curtailing a slight grimace of shock on my face. Sometimes ignorance really is bliss.

But seeing that heavy black steel sphere for the first time on the ground outside the bunker, I couldn't believe they had been planning to put Alexi in there. I was now very glad we had stood up for him as I stepped inside the bunker again.

"Steinar," I said upon entering, now knowing our medic's name, "did you remember the back-up trigger those bomb devices apparently sometimes carry?"

"It didn't have one, sir," he casually replied as he continued to perform surgery without looking at me. "Those guys in the suits can't always see very well through their helmets. Plus, it's always better for them to assume they might anyway. A person in this work can get cocky or careless after a while with all the drills on dummy units we go through. Whoops," he then said as he accidentally dropped a surgical tool on the floor.

I began to wonder a little about our medic now as I re-closed the bunker door. But as I did, the door was stopped by a hand.

"Gat þú notar sumir hjálpa?" Ran now offered, standing just beyond it wearing a surgical smock and a mask.

"Þakka þér, Ran," I accepted. "Já, gætum vit."

We then went into rotating shifts, with three of us working on Alexi, while one of us rested. Either Ran or Steinar led the surgery, while Roana and I assisted. Removing the toxin device in Alexi's right arm proved to be complex enough, as we carefully worked to avoid releasing any of the toxin within Alexi's body as we removed it and the associated tubing.

But working inside his head proved to be much more risky.

"Okay, we've severed the wires to the transceiver up here," Steinar reported to me as he and Ran worked on Alexi's head. "Go ahead and gently pull them out where you are below the neck. Just go very slowly."

"Pulling," I confirmed.

"Sonogram," Steinar then requested to Ran in English. Both men watched a screen next to them as Ran passed the emitter around the back of Alexi's turned head and neck, following the end of the wire as I withdrew it. "Very good, you're clear of the brain stem with the wires now. Keep pulling at that pace. We're going to work on removing the transceiver itself, part of which appears to be emplanted through his skull. Sonogram, her oppe," Steinar then directed in both English and Bokmål.

"Break time for you," Roana said, coming up beside me to relieve me.

"They've both been working longer than I have here," I noted as I kept slowly pulling the very thin twinned wires out from Alexi's upper chest at a steady pace.

"Steinar, break time for you, too," Roana reminded him.

"Just one moment," the medic replied as he carefully worked on Alexi's skull with both his hands. "I think we've almost got this transceiver out . . . wait, I'm getting blood here, from within the skull. Haemorrhage."

"Vitals destabilizing," Roana reported as monitor alarms started going off.

"I'm clear with the wires," I reported as I finished pulling the wires out.

"I'm clear with the transceiver," Steinar chimed in as well.

"Vacuum," Ran then called, in English to my amazement.

"Vacuum," I replied, passing him a narrow vacuum tube to evacuate the excess blood from the small opening in Alexi's skull now.

"Vasculatures are something I work on," Roana now said in just English, not wasting time as she quickly prepared a very small diameter catheter for insertion within the broken blood vessel. Both men now made way for her as she proceeded to repair and seal that artery in Alexi's brain by inserting the catheter while carefully watching both the surgical area and the sonogram of that area as Ran held the emitter.

I just found myself praying that no lasting damage had been done while glancing at Alexi's Nightmare who continued to watch us from nearby.

"Closed," Roana announced a while later after she finished the suture on the top of Alexi's head.

"Closed," I also echoed as I finished a suture on his upper chest, where the original device and button I discovered had been. "When I settled on a PhD in biology," I sighed, "I never thought I'd be doing surgeries like this again."

"You're good at it, Doctor," Roana praised as she raised her mask. "We've needed another pair of hands like yours here, haven't we, Ran?"

"Já," he reluctantly conceded, seeming to retreat behind Norse again.

"Okay, Ran, how much English can you really speak?" I pleasantly asked him.

"Some," was all he would say.

"Ran, vit erum lit hér. We are a team here," I assured in both Norse and English.

He just nervously accepted my extended hand, briefly shook it, and then turned away. I glanced at Roana as she just subtly rolled her eyes.

Now we waited for Alexi to awake from the anesthetic.

"One O'Clock," I noted as I looked up at a clock in the bunker clinic for the first time. "Surprisingly good, time-wise."

"I think that's One A.M., Lance," my mate replied as she went to open a bunker door. "Yep, we've been in here close to fourteen hours. Sorry, Rökkr," she called to him outside, "but we're done now, and things look okay . . . He's saying he's been home to check on Substance and Spring," she relayed back to me, "and assures they are fine and asleep."

"He's coming around," Steinar noted as he checked both Alexi and his oxygen carefully. "Alexi, how are you doing?"

Our patient slurred something, probably in Russian. I couldn't make out what it was. His dragon now moved closer however, wanting to see and be seen by him.

Alexi turned his head towards her, and weakly raised a hand to her snout as well. The Nightmare briefly closed her eyes in grateful relief. The love and devotion of dragons . . . it's what made Berk, Berk, and was a beautiful sight to behold.

While the surgery had not gone perfectly, and I was somewhat worried about Alexi's recovery and prospects now—we had prevented another 'Alltaf' tragedy. A dragon and her human were happily together, both our village and myself were now safe, and we were still on good terms, even allies, with both the MJK and Norway.

"You did good again, Chief," Roana assured next to me as we continued to watch Alexi and his Nightmare further bond together. "Sooo much better than Ran," she added in a soft whisper. That managed to force me to crack a subtle smile.

I simply chose to accept it all, and call it good.


	29. Chapter 29

_Author's Note_

_My apologies, but the busyness that tends to be a part of Christmas and the Holidays has prevented me from communing with the dragons here, or at least this story, as I would have liked. I've had hardly any writing days, or even hours, for the past three weeks!_

_But now that the Holiday Hubbub is over, and even Saint Nick can relax in peace, and maybe write some himself; I hope to catch up — at least somewhat. So in addition to this, expect another chapter as normal later this week . . . as my holiday present from me to you._

_Enjoy,_

— _Norwesterner_

* * *

><p>As the seasons began to change and grow cooler around us, Rökkr continued to constantly shuttle Roana and I between the village and the lifeboat station where Substance was slowly recovering.<p>

This commuting and living apart from the village was taking a toll on my family, especially on Substance. I could tell that she really missed being a part of village life. On the island, Substance had a purpose, she was needed by others. At the station however, she was the one who was being attended to. She had nothing to do but just lie in the boathouse or on the ramp, blind, and recover from her injuries and surgeries.

At least Spring kept her busy, asking Substance questions, and having her teach him every day while the rest of us were gone to the island. He would even make fish runs on his own during the day for her, as he had once done for his aunt. But Spring was not only a bright young Night Fury, he was an insightful one, too.

One evening, when Roana, Rökkr and I managed to make it home to the station before dark, we found him even coaching her on the boat ramp, encouraging her to do flapping exercises with her wings to regain her strength. He just glanced at us as we landed behind him, continuing to grunt in rhythm in encouragement to Substance as she flapped her wings a few more times before stopping.

"Lannce, you home early," my dragon said with her deep Night Fury voice and accent, somehow recognizing us—perhaps by smell, or simply timing.

"Roana, Rökkr and I have been missing good dinnertimes with our family too much," I said with a smile.

"And with the progress you're making here," my mate chimed in next to me, "this definitely calls for a special dinner at home, for all of us!"

While we soon thanked and dismissed Substance's caregivers for the night and Roana and Rökkr proceeded to oversee the making of our family's favourite mutton stew over a makeshift fire and cauldron we had set up just outside the boathouse, my Night Fury son surprised me.

"W-Wallk . . . mmeee," Spring invited to me, gesturing with his head off towards the station's helipad and beyond.

"Spring, you're learning English!" I remarked with pleasant surprise, forgetting to add a Norse translation this time.

"Yesss," he said almost with a hiss. "F-Forr yyouu, F-Fathherrr."

I knelt down, practically with a tear in my eye, and embraced his head as he nudged me. "Son, I don't know what to say," I finally said.

"Walk," he simply replied.

"Okayy . . ." I replied with something of an intrigued smile, sensing he was up to something. "We'll be back soon," I said to the rest of our family. "Spring here wants to go for a little walk with me."

So my dragon son and I went off across the lawn to towards the helipad and the station's one approach road. I didn't know how far we could go along that road before encountering the first and most deep level of the Outside Berker and possibly military security roadblocks—I presumed maybe a half mile at most.

"So, did you want something on this walk, Spring?" I now asked my son. "And can you understand my English here, or do you want both Norse and English?"

"Norrrse, Ennglish helllp," he replied with a little difficulty as he then looked down and paused as we walked. "Brinng otherrrs," he finally added though. "Classs . . . for teacherrr. Helllp herrr."

"Spring," I said with a smile as I now turned and knelt down in front of him, "that's brilliant. Þat er ljómandi."

"W-We cann go back now," he said as we were just beyond the helipad on the approach road, and having accomplished his little mission. "Guarrdss w-watching uss."

"No privacy. Engin næti," I sighed in both languages.

"W-We immportant," he replied proudly.

I cracked a smile at him as I rubbed his head.

"Surrprrizze though," he added, " . . . f-for herrr."

"You got it," I pledged. "Surprise."

The plot hatched, my incredible dragon son and I now returned to the station for a stew dinner we were both salivating at the prospect of. I now had to put our scheme clear out of my mind for fear that Substance just might be able to pick up the vibes of excited anticipation, even increased love for her from me.

While I had a top security clearance, and keeping secrets was part of my job and profession, I wasn't always that good at keeping surprises secret . . . especially good ones like this.

— — — — —

The very next morning, even as Roana and I flew on Rökkr back to the island and village for another day's work, "Roana," I asked, "could Rökkr and I drop you off at the caves today? I need to borrow him . . . for a few hours."

Both of them now glanced back at me with a little surprise as we flew.

"You're up to something, aren't you?" my mate smiled in front of me.

"Now that we're airborne and away from the station," I finally let out, "last night during our walk, Spring asked me to surprise Substance by bringing the rest of the class to her."

"And you were going to let me miss out on being there for something like that?" she now queried.

"Well . . ." I hesitated, before adding, "I'm sorry. You're right."

"I just have a few checks to do there," she said in a fortunately forgiving tone, "then let's get the class."

The first and foremost patient we had to check on was Alexi. With his concurrence, Alexi's Nightmare had insisted on taking him on her back to recuperate from his surgeries at their nest in the caves, even though Frelsari and Helga had offered to host both of them in their house in the village.

"How are you doing, Alexi?" my mate asked as we entered the caves and approached the nest he and his dragon shared.

"Fffinne," Alexi slurred somewhat, fortunately with at least half a smile on his face, and definitely in his eyes. He was lying in the nest, with his Nightmare having snugly wrapped herself around him. She had carefully arranged several sheepskins over him, having bunched up another underneath his head as he rested it against her tail. I wondered if a dragon could take care of a human recuperating from such serious surgery in such primitive conditions, but Alexi appeared to be very comfortable and content.

"Let me feel your grip," Roana asked, kneeling down next to him. "Left hand first."

Alexi easily reached up with his left hand and squeezed Roana's right hand.

"Good," she praised. "Now your right."

This time, he could barely lift his other hand as it shook. Roana met him halfway with her hand.

"Squeeze for me," she requested.

I barely saw his fingers move.

"It's improving, Alexi," she encouraged anyway. "You sure you want to be up here though, instead of in a house?"

"H-Happyy . . ." he slurred, looking not only at his dragon, but at the several others of various breeds that were gathered around us. "Evveryonne hherre . . . carrre fforr mmee. Llovve . . ." he sniffed.

His own dragon now carefully extended her head over his blanketed body to carefully nudge him right on the nose as his head continued to rest comfortably against her tail.

"Okay," Roana conceded with a smile, "I can see you have it pretty good here. But we'll take you down to the village for a bath and full check-up tomorrow, okay?"

"Drragonn already washh mmee," he smiled, "all overrr."

"That must have been interesting," my mate replied, raising an eyebrow as she nonetheless smiled as well, before her smile faded. "Alexi . . ." she hesitated, "you know this is going to be a long recovery, and maybe not even a full one, from the stroke you suffered during surgery. Again, I am so sorry that happened."

"S-Sovviet fault," he assured, his limp right hand still in hers. "Not yourrs. You savve me. Me, dragon . . . happy."

"It gets cold here in winter," Roana gently warned. "The blizzards can last for days, even weeks. We humans down in the village won't be able to come check on you very often. As your doctor for now, as I can communicate with you better than Doctor Ran does, as well as a friend . . . I ask you, and your dragon, to accept Frelsari and Helga's offer to stay with them." Roana then grunted presumably the same request in Dragon as she looked at the Nightmare.

Alexi and his Nighmare then looked at each other, and nodded together.

"We accept," Alexi said for both of them. "Shhe know when to brinng me down, or comme get youu. Vacation with dragonns here for moment though."

"Are you being fed well, and taking your prescribed medicines morning and night?" Roana asked.

"Roast fish, whenever I ask," Alexi assured. "Plus all mead tea I can drink. And dragon reminds me about pills if I forget. MJK check on me, too, even bring fruit from canteen now. Even they becoming friends, now that I am no longer threat . . . to anyone."

"Are you able to get up to relieve yourself when needed yet?" Roana then asked directly, like any doctor would.

"Dragon still carriess mme in leatherr ssling outside," Alexi admitted. "If I could get up with just my left arrm and leg," he added, trying to demonstrate a little, "I vould. But Doctor Roana," he added, "I am sso good now, insside."

"That I can see, Alexi," she assured with a smile again, "I'll keep checking on you, and probably come get you myself. You need anything for now though?"

"I'm perfect," he assured as he caressed his dragon's toothy snout with his good left hand.

Even I could tell that Alexi had spent time gazing deep into the eyes of his dragon, finding a companionship and understanding that many humans probably never know. It was a practice I had heard of before here, and one that Substance had likely shared with her previous companion and rider. But Roana was my first and overriding love . . . with the dragons coming in a close second now. Still, I felt I wanted to spend at least some time communing with Substance, looking into at least her soul, if not her lifeless eyes anymore.

Another thing for my winter 'to-do' list, I decided for myself as Roana and I got up from Alexi's side.

"Thannk youu, ffor letting mme stay with youu," Alexi said, lying snugly encircled by his dragon. "I vas dead, in Russia. Noww, ffor firrst time . . . I live."

Both Roana and I nodded in understanding before my mate then grunted to his Nightmare. She just pleasantly shook her head 'no' before returning her gaze to her human companion.

"We'll see you later, Alexi," I said as I turned to help Roana with brief checks on the recovering dragons in the caves.

Sure enough, I now saw at least one other human villager pushing a wheelbarrow of dragon dung out of the caves. I wondered if the village would be keeping this up for the wounded dragons through the dead of winter, but I figured they had it in hand, even for centuries now, so I didn't ask.

Soon, with the dragon checks completed, a few bandages changed, and a couple dragons even given full bills of health to fly again by Roana, we were ready for my activity for the day . . . Substance's surprise.

— — — — —

"Okay," I said, addressing the class with both Roana and Rökkr beside me, "those of you who can get your family's permission to fly off the island, are going to help surprise Substance."

I barely got through the Norse translation of those words before I was overwhelmed with roaring and cheering from the entire class, as they eagerly took off on foot or wing to go check with their parents.

"We meet back here . . ." I tried to say to a now virtually empty patch of grassy hillside before I just gave up.

"They know what to do," my mate assured, wrapping an arm around me. "Probably half the dragon parents, along with the human ones, will want to help fly some of the children anyway, as many of the young dragons are too small to fly their classmates."

Soon, Roana was proven right as we were surrounded by not only the children and young dragons, but by a good number of their human and dragon family members as well. We would be leading a big group back to the lifeboat station.

With Roana and I on Rökkr, we took to the air, leading a good-sized swarm of dragons and humans up over the island's eastern mountains and out across the inland sea among a few other islands and peninsulas before our station came into sight on its isolated, wooded point. As we crossed in full daylight over the open sound, I winced a little, forgetting to check with the MJK to make sure the waters around our island were clear of kayakers or any others. Fortunately, it was almost October now, and the local tourist season was over. Either that, or the Norwegian military were doing a better job of enforcing the wildlife quarantine zone around our island.

As the station, came into sight, I saw both Substance and Spring outside on the lawn near the helipad this time. "He's a smart boy, drawing her outside for this," I quietly admired to Roana in front of me as we saw them both.

"He's our son," Roana simply replied before Rökkr led the group in a loud and long roar now among us, as we approached for a landing on the station's grassy area.

Substance was already turning and raising her head though, detecting the mass of presences approaching at a distance. The tearful smile that was on her face as we all began to land . . . it was beyond measure.

Her students just couldn't wait as they now rushed to nudge and touch her, from all sides.

Roana and I just stood by together, watching the whole thing with tears in our eyes, along with other village human and dragon parents. I had never seen my dragon so happy as she was right now.

— — — — —

Before long, we were all seated on the grass, some even on the helipad, around Substance. Roana was just translating everything being grunted or said for my benefit next to me as Substance brought her class to order for the first time since before the battle several weeks ago now.

"She's inviting a question for a topic," my mate conveyed as Substance grunted in her native Dragon now.

"Glad we teach alike," I quietly replied to my mate.

A small Gronkle raised its wing this time and grunted.

"Uh oh," Roana noted quietly in caution, "he's saying that he's heard Substance is blind, and he's asking what it's like."

Substance hesitated only briefly though before she began grunting.

"She asks those who want to can sit right next to her and lean against or nudge her," my mate conveyed. "Now she's asking everyone to close their eyes, and just keep them closed."

We all quietly closed our eyes now, at least as far as I could tell.

"'This,' she says," Roana continued translating, "'is what blindness is like. It is never opening your eyes again. Every memory I have, of everything I have ever seen . . . it is so valuable, so precious to me now. I remember each of your faces. No matter how old you get, how your voices change, you will always look to me as you are now. As a dragon, I sense your presences, your essences around me. You are there to me, even though I cannot see you. I will ask you though to keep your eyes closed for the rest of this lesson—to share my blindness with me for a while. Sense things as I do now . . . through hearing, touch, smell, and Spirit. There is meaning here. I have never felt a breeze as I do now. I have never savoured a touch from another as I do now. I have never known or felt love from my mate, my companion and my family, as I do now.

"'I miss my sight . . .'" I heard my mate say as my dragon's grunting faltered a little. "'You cannot know how much I miss it, unless you also close your eyes permanently as mine are now, and enter into this sightless world as I have. I look into my mate's and my human companion's eyes with just my mind and memory now, but I look into their eyes every day. Their looks of love, their encouraging smiles . . . those precious memories keep me going. They allow me to wake up in the same darkness every morning now that I sleep in during the night. Night, day . . . they have lost much of their meaning to me. I need touch, I need nudges, I need mating . . . just to remember I am alive in this world sometimes, and not dead, or in a dream.'"

Substance now paused, for what seemed like a long time. No one said a thing. I didn't open my eyes, and I felt no one else was either.

My dragon finally broke the silence among us with her grunts. "'This is what my world is like,'" Roana resumed translating, "'when no one speaks with me, when no one touches me. I feel dead, empty. I need you, all of you, to help keep me in this world . . . the one you can see. Please touch me as you talk with me. Nudge me, rub me, kiss me, hug me, lick me. Keep me grounded here with the sensations and sounds and smells of life on this plane . . . please. Otherwise I feel abandoned to a place that is between worlds—neither Earth, nor Spirit.'"

I now heard some rustling, some movement as those around me seemed to be gathering closer together, moving towards where I remembered Substance was. I did not open my eyes though, for my dragon. I now joined, blindly, in the tide of humans and dragons that was now shifting, moving closer around Substance, even just scooting my rump forward somewhat on the grass. Keeping one arm around Roana—I was _not_ going to lose track of her while I kept my eyes shut—I reached with my other arm and embraced someone on my other side, kind of in front of me actually. From its leathery hide and tall but softer spines, I presumed it was a young Nightmare. I embraced it with that one arm though as I felt the dragon extend a wing around me as well.

Substance was right. Touch was critical here. It made an absolute difference, enabling me distinguish between what it was to be alive versus being alone in a terrifyingly blank and empty void that seemed like death itself, likely even worse than death. I silently vowed that I would be more physical with Substance now . . . a lot more. I would hug her as I casually talked with her. I would breathe my words into her ear. I would bury her snout against me, inviting her to smell me whether I was clean or dirty. I would show my dragon that I loved her . . . through as many ways and sensations as I could.

Substance murmured, breaking the silence among us again. "She says, 'Let me read from the journal,'" Roana conveyed. "'I can hear it now in my mind, just as it has been read to me, many times. I think I'll go . . . here, to a passage about Elara. She was blind, too—made so by enemies, somewhat as I was. But she had a hard time forgiving those who had blinded her. That marred her life somewhat, coloured it. How do you think not forgiving can affect someone? Don't bother to raise hands or wings anymore—I can't tell. Just gently speak, and if two or more speak, let's have the one on the left of me go first, and then the next.'"

The class proceeded into an orderly discussion, all without sight, at least so far as I knew. Substance even spoke passages about Elara, Eric's blind wife, from the journal in Dragon by memory alone. I drew both Roana, and the Nightmare next to me closer as time went by here, my eyes remaining closed.

Finally though, "'It is growing late,'" Roana translated as Substance grunted. "'Please open your eyes. See again for me now.'"

I opened my eyes, and to my amazement it was almost sunset. An entire half-day had passed. I had lost all sense of time while my eyes had been closed. I found myself gathered very close, even tight, between Roana, that Nightmare, and other dragons and humans around us. We were gathered close around Substance like a web, even a disc. We were one. Through sharing Substance's blindness, distinctions between us had seemed to vanish, as had the spaces between us.

"Lannce, family," Substance then said to me, and our family, in English, "please guide our class home. Then come back soon—I am ready for supper!"

I carefully stepped among the children and dragons to reach Substance. "We will," I finally said to her as I embraced her large head with my entire upper body, and breathing my words right into her left ear as I kissed her several times, even giving her head a lick. Her leathery hide tasted somewhat salty, yet a little bitter, too. I had never known that before.

"Thannk you, Lannce," she appreciatively said.

"Substance, could I sleep in your embrace tonight?" I asked. "Still with Roana, but with you, too."

"I look forward to it," my dragon replied.

— — — — —

My dragon held me tightly in our bedding that night. Between her and Roana snuggled against me on my other side, I couldn't move. I felt Substance's leathery hide, even the scars and stiches of her abdomen, along the skin of my left side from head to toe as my head and legs were cradled among her large legs and her left wing covered Roana and I.

"Substance," I said as I faded off to sleep. "I love you enough to share your blindness with you . . . however I can, however you want."

"Just be with me," my dragon replied, as I felt her voice resonate through both her body and mine. "I need you to see world beyond, for both us now."

"Thank you," I added, "for encouraging and helping us to experience your blindness today. It changed things for me, in ways I am still working on being able to describe."

"For first time," she said, "I was not alone in here today . . . in cell."

"Substance . . ." I began gently shedding tears as I moved up to embrace my dragon around her neck, pressing my full body against her as she gripped me tightly with both front legs, and her left wing, too. Roana chose to move close against me from behind, allowing my dragon to embrace her as well. Even Rökkr enfolded Substance from behind, tightly.

"I don't want you to be alone in that cell," I said with sadness.

"Hold me," she requested. "Just hold me."

Our family was one mass as we all held Substance. We fell asleep that way, truly entering her realm of darkness together with her as our tears subsided.

— — — — —

We were all quieter the next morning as we woke up. I now truly felt guilty for being able to open my eyes and see, while my dragon could not.

While Roana got up and covered herself in a long indoor tunic, I remained resting against Substance, closing my eyes again.

"Lannce?" my dragon said, beginning to stir around me herself.

"You . . ." I said, then stopping.

"What?" my dragon asked.

"We should have given you armour . . . or something," I sighed.

"Can't fly backwards," she noted. "My face, my eyes in front, no matter what. Head up, head down . . . my eyes get hit. Had head up to protect eyes best I could . . . let jaw take bullets. But no good."

"What was the last thing you saw?" I now felt compelled to ask.

"Our valley, our village," she said, "from low down, in night, at start of attack. First bullets hit eyes, sting badly. Close them. Been that way ever since . . . But I could still sense outlines of things around me as I flew us into village. I could sense outlines of guards I hit, sense outline of backpack I pick up, outline of mountains around me as I flew out over sea. Even sensed outline of you falling to ground. Very relieved then. Once I knew I was over sea, I drop bomb. Bomb explode, throw me into world of yellow . . . of flame, heat, force. I give myself to Spirit at that point. Expected to be waking up in Spirit, but woke up in this world, in cell, instead. Now, no outlines . . . just darkness, blankness."

"Substance, I want to get you out of there," I sniffed. "Out of that cell."

"Just touch me, be with me," she said quietly with sadness. "It all you can do, for as long as I live here now. Meditation work some, but not as much anymore. I escape from cell in sleep, in dreams though. I see again there."

"Come on, my love," Roana now said. "Here's your tea, but I could use help bringing fish in for the rest of us. We have to go to work."

"One of us mourning my sight is enough," Substance added. "See, Lannce. Go, do for me. Open eyes . . . please."

Reluctantly, I opened my eyes. "These colours, these images are ugly to me now," I said with a degree of bitterness.

"No," my dragon gently countered. "I would give anything, even to see a rock again."

"This is so wrong, Substance," I found myself saying with tears in my eyes as I shut them again.

"Help me make it right," my dragon asked, shedding tears with me, " . . . please."

"For you, Substance," I agreed, opening my eyes again and looking at her. "But I am so sad, so angry for you," I sniffed.

"Makes no difference," she said, still resting on her right side next to me as I managed to sit up now. "Still in cell. Break windows, make hole in wall . . . cell still around me. Can be miserable here, or be happy. That only choice now. I want to be happy again . . . even in cell. Help me be happy, Lannce."

"Alright," I accepted, wiping my eyes. "Alright." I took a deep breath, trying to shift gears now. "You want us to bring the class over again?"

"Not today," she said. "You need to do other things. I not feel ready for class, to be there for them, anyway. I need to get familiar with cell here, alone. My new home."

"No Substance," I countered. "That's not your home."

"It is," she replied. "No choice. Otherwise I go mad, insane. Don't want to go there, make cell even worse. I have to accept this now, calm myself. Win new battle. Otherwise I hurt myself, you, our family. This . . . winning this acceptance . . . gives me new purpose, my only chance at peace now. Help me do this, Lannce."

"What can I do then?" I asked, forcing myself to accept it all, along with my dragon.

"Go, work," she said. "Take everyone with you . . . Spring, even helpers today. Leave me totally alone . . . to face myself, confront the rage, sadness, agony within me. My goal, to be here for you tonight when you return. It is battle I will win. I vow. Pray for me, think of me, fight with me where you will be today."

"I'll phone and let our security forces know about this situation, that Substance will be alone today, at her request," Roana said now fully dressed herself next to me.

"Tell them do not intervene," Substance warned. "Will probably roar, but will fight to avoid doing any damage."

"We should give you something to destroy," I said. "It felt good doing that to some things in my house during the divorce."

"That my battle," Substance explained, " . . . not to harm even blade of grass while I fight."

"Substance," I said now finally getting up to my feet while still keeping a hand on her, "I admire you . . . and I love you."

"Have a good day," she said. "I love you, tonight."

I just bent down, hugging her head once more, yet to put on a scrap of clothing myself. "Fight," I just encouraged her with a last kiss as I let go of my dragon and turned, finding Roana holding clean clothes for me and ready to help me quickly dress. I prayed silently and intensely as I dressed. I tried so hard to put myself inside that cell with Substance, even with my eyes open. If I could have forced my heart out of my body and into hers, I would have.

This day, I felt Substance was choosing to face the hell of her blindness full on. I had confidence she would win . . . but I would have done anything to spare her from it.

Roana now returned from calling our outside security contingent in the station's office, ready to go, as I had finished opening the boathouse doors for those of us who were leaving.

"We're going now, Substance," I simply said. "Do you want the boathouse doors open or closed?"

"Closed," she replied. "My isolation complete. My battle full."

"I am with you, my companion," I vowed as our family stepped outside onto the boat ramp. "I am so with you."

Substance said nothing as she faced the far wall, resting on her stomach as I slid the boathouse doors closed behind us.

Roana just briefly held my arm as she gave me a look of reassurance.

"Let's go," I simply said as Roana and I mounted onto Rökkr's saddle, and he and Spring then took off with us.

Fortunately, we intercepted Substance's caregivers for the day as they approached in the air on their Nadders, with us turning them around.

I had heard of Zen monks and a few others entering into such battles against self, but this time, the battle was close, real, and personal. I found myself wanting to turn around in the air as we flew to our island, even wanting to jump off Rökkr and swim back to the station to fight alongside Substance. But maybe fighting that urge was my battle for her and I today. I remained on Rökkr behind Roana, but I flew in absolute silence. Roana seemed to know that I didn't want to talk.

As we soon descended into the valley on our island, I finally spoke though. "I'm sorry," I apologised to Roana.

"You're fighting, with her," my mate acknowledged. "It's okay."

"I don't know how I'm going to function today," I said.

"That is your battle," my mate encouraged. "Fight. Do. Win."

"Alright," I accepted, bracing for the day now.

— — — — —

The working day on the island was a blur. I was doing things, talking to people . . . apparently doing and saying the right things . . . but I was hardly conscious of any of it. I wasn't even thinking about my dragon much. It was like a lot of me simply was not there.

"Be present," I heard Roana whisper quietly in my ear at one point, almost like a Zen master probably would have—not that I had had any personal experience with that, however.

I just quietly nodded as the MJK platoon commander resumed going over his plans for preparing for winter with us as we all stood together in the village commons. Fortunately, Roana was prepared and ready to share our food and supply needs with him. I hadn't even realized we were talking with him until that moment.

I gently squeezed my mate's hand as I glanced at her in gratitude. She glanced back at me, cracking a subtle smile and giving my hand three little squeezes in reply _. . ._ _Ek ást þú_ _. . . I love you_, she silently shared.

I was present now.

— — — — —

Finally, the sun was setting and it was time to go home. No evening village feasts or other occasions today. I now remembered I hadn't even shown up to teach the class today . . . or maybe I had. I couldn't be sure. No one else seemed to mind one way or the other though.

"Let's go," Roana warmly invited as she climbed aboard Rökkr.

"I'm sorry," I apologised again as I seated myself behind her.

"It's been for a good cause," she assured as Rökkr took to the air with both of us, while Spring flew alongside.

I just rubbed my face now, trying to bring the rest of me fully back into myself from wherever it had gone. I felt drained though . . . like most of my energy or life force had been taken from me somehow.

I didn't know what we would find when we got back to the station. Amazingly, I felt myself prepared even if we found my dragon dead. At least her suffering would then be over. She would be truly free of her cell.

We soon landed on the station boat ramp. Roana and I both dismounted from Rökkr and went to open the boathouse doors. Even though there were panes of glass in each door panel, I deliberately did not look through them, choosing to look just at the ramp until I had pulled and folded my half of the doors open to the left side.

I now finally raised my gaze and looked inside.

Substance was now turned around, facing us. "Rökkr, Lannce, family," she calmly said.

"Substance," I simply said as I knelt down in front of her, and took her entire head into a deep embrace, kissing the top of it as well, before I moved to one side, allowing Rökkr to nudge her. "How are you?" I then asked, still keeping a hand on her.

"Drained," she replied. "Very drained."

"Me, too," I agreed with a deep sigh.

"Wouldn't have won without you today," she said, even as Rökkr gave her face some loving licks. "Wanted to die, let go, move on. But I found you and Rökkr in cell with me, crying, holding me—even fusing, bonding, merging with me. I stayed in cell . . . for you. I loved you and Rökkr so much. Couldn't part from you two," she sniffed, gently shaking her head under my renewed embrace. "Couldn't part from you."

"That explains where most of me was today," I noted. "What do you want now, Substance? What can I or we do for you?"

"First," she said with some determination now beneath me, "I want to mate, with Rökkr . . . roar hard. Then I want scrub, water hot, also hard. Then feast, lots of salmon. Then sleep, close, with all of you. That life to me. That what I fought for today."

"You got it," I assured my dragon as I embraced her head one more time before getting up. "All of it."

No sooner had Roana removed his saddle than Rökkr was already moving to claim Substance, aggressively, even fiercely . . . biting down on her neck as he enveloped her with his entire body, even his wings.

"I might want us to try some rough love play like that," Roana quietly admired to me as we, along with Spring, politely turned to go to the kitchen to fetch several cases of salmon filets from the station's large freezer. We were not about to interrupt Rökkr to make a fish run at the moment.

The bellowing of the two dragons was soon reverberating, even rattling, the station, as we stacked the cases of salmon out in the kitchen.

"Spring . . . we'll be back," I then decided, possessively moving close behind Roana and ushering her next door into the station coxswain's quarters. "Enjoy a salmon snack if you like."

Roana did not resist one whit, as I closed the door behind us and now brought her tight against me in the room and went straight for her neck, almost like a vampire. For this moment, I was a male dragon, mating with my mate—and Roana was right with me on it all. Both our arms seemed to become wings that enveloped each other. We breathed fire into each other's mouths. We soared together, off to heights and places that ordinary humans just did not know. And we let loose blasts of flame that burned away everything around us.

I opened my eyes to find Roana beneath me on a bed. Her shoulders were bare, and both of us were breathing hard.

"I see you," she said to me, laying a hand against the side of my face. "And I am so glad I see you."

I found myself aching inside though, knowing that Substance could not see her mate. I just let my face fall against the side of her head and bury my eyes that I almost cursed now amid Roana's long, blonde hair. I wept for my dragon . . . for the loss of her sight that I seemed to feel as keenly as she did.

"Let it out," Roana encouraged, holding me tightly against her. "Let it all out now, just as your dragon is."

We heard the roars, perhaps sad moans, of two dragons continuing to resonate throughout the station, even through the bed we were on, and within our own bodies.

I buried myself against Roana. I merged with her some more. I kissed her hard.

"You feel what your dragon does," Roana assured as she remained right with me in both spirit and body, " . . . even when you are not with her. That is how you know you are truly bonded with her. She was drawing on your strength today—every bit she could. I could see it within you. Cry now with her, release everything now with me."

"I want to be with her," I wept, "with my dragon."

Roana quietly nodded and we got up and left the room, just as we were. We then passed Spring in the station's kitchen and lounge. He just quietly nodded to us as he was almost guarding the cases of salmon. They were still unopened. He then gestured with his head along the corridor towards the door to the boathouse space. He was wise beyond his years . . . but then, he was a dragon.

Without saying a word, Roana and I entered the boathouse space. Rökkr and Substance were moaning, crying together. He was still above her, embracing her with his entire self. The sight made both Roana and I cry as well.

The damage was done. Substance wasn't going to be seeing with her eyes anymore, at all. It was sinking in with us now . . . all of us. My human mate and I just moved to kneel and embrace both our dragons, undressed as we were, and mourn with them. Spring soon joined us as well. We finally all just cried together, holding, nudging each other tightly. We let it all out.

Finally, the tears ebbed . . . but the love among us did not. It was stronger now, surer, far more solid. I was able to open my eyes, look at my family around me, even look into Substance's half-opened, lifeless eyes now.

"Oh man," I sniffed, feeling like I was almost trying to pull the rest of me back into myself.

"You see my spirit?" Substance finally asked, turning her head slightly towards me while still tightly held in her mate's embrace. "Because I see yours now, Lannce—Rökkr's, too. Clear as day. Right in front of me, with me, even in me. Right inside this cell. You both glow . . . with life. You surround me with it, flood me in it. I fight. I see you. I live, Lannce . . ." she wept.

"I live . . ." my dragon said.


	30. Chapter 30

Another morning came. Substance was still blind. The nightmarish dream that wouldn't leave was the new normal in our family. I felt numb, powerless about it now. Substance was right. No matter what she, I or anyone else had done . . . being sad or happy, calm or violently angry . . . it was still there—in her case, almost like a hood over her face, or as she had called it, a cell.

I sensed no one else was stirring yet as I lay within my dragon's embrace as much as my mate's. With my eyes still closed, I rolled over and embraced Substance. I felt her legs grip around me, and Roana, more tightly. There was a sad unity and cohesion around us now. I moved myself further up to embrace my dragon's large neck and lay my head against it. I then turned my face and pressed my nose against her leathery hide that we had all scrubbed so well last night. I kissed it, and tried to avoid crying yet again. This was a misery that just wouldn't leave us alone.

Others were beginning to stir now. I allowed myself to open my eyes. Rökkr raised his head from behind Substance, and gave her a slow, loving gnawing along the top of her neck. We all were doing our parts now for her.

"Thannk you," my dragon said with an almost contented sigh . . . as much to me, given the English she was using, as to Rökkr.

Roana now reached up and rubbed my back with a hand. I didn't know whether it was in support, or to get my attention on her the way she was used to some mornings.

"Hi," I simply said as I turned and slipped back into our bedding beside my mate, still amid Substance's legs.

"Hi," she quietly echoed, giving me a full embrace now.

I quietly half-smiled. Roana needed a hug, too.

Rökkr now rose onto his paws—stretching, yawning and shaking himself. He grunted at Spring, who was now waking up next to Roana and I. They both then turned and headed for the boathouse doors, presumably for a breakfast fish run.

Roana stirred herself as well though, sitting up. "Dragons can't open the doors around here," she sighed, putting on a long tunic, and then rising and walking to open the folding boathouse doors for them.

"Lannce . . ." Substance whispered to me as Roana walked away. "You done enough for me. Do something for her, this day off."

"Okay," I quietly half-smiled again. "I'll think of something."

I now rose, grabbing and slipping into a tunic myself, and then quickly walked to help Roana push open the other side of folding door panels, with her giving me a quiet but seemingly grateful glance as I did. She of all people appreciated, even encouraged, a strong and loving bond with dragons. But sometimes, I sensed she still wanted to come first among my affections and connections. As I helped her push the folding door panels open, I silently vowed that today, she would. Once the doors were open, my arms just slid around her as I took her into a powerful kiss, while we leaned against those red-painted metal and glass panels. Rökkr and Spring took off past us with roars, out for a morning fish run.

Roana alternately sighed, even moaned, and laughed as I just kept our kiss going. "What's this?" she breathed as I now moved to kiss and even gnaw a little on her neck, dragon style.

"You . . . and me," I finally said, holding her tightly now and rocking her a little. "No other reason."

"Lance . . ." she sighed appreciatively. She then just moved her head back a little to look at me with a mixture of curiosity and delight, but also a little concern.

"Maybe I'm partly trying to get grounded again," I admitted to her, " . . . find a new normal."

Roana moved to kiss me again with understanding. "I'm here," she assured. "I'm here."

I just held her gratefully.

"But let's get some tea for us all," she then invited. "Come with me, out back. I saw during the class two days ago that several barrels of mead tea have been delivered. We're out of it in the kitchen now."

"Substance, we're off to get tea," I said to my dragon as we headed for the doorway to the rest of the station. "Be back shortly. You okay alone?" Stupid question given yesterday, but it slipped out anyway.

"No blade of grass be harmed," Substance replied.

I stopped Roana and I at the doorway to the rest of the station. With an understanding glance, she released me to go over to my dragon. "I understand, Substance," I said as I bent down and gave her a good hug and a kiss on her head before she turned herself upright for the day on her four legs. I knew that 'blade of grass' reference was my dragon's new serenity prayer or mantra. It told me that she was likely upset or angry as hell, but that she had it contained, and that nothing would happen while we were gone. I sighed, rubbed my dragon on her head again, and then rejoined Roana.

With both of us still dressed in just single long tunics and barefoot, my mate took me by the hand. We then stopped to pick up four wooden buckets at the corridor doorway for all of us, along with a crowbar from a utility locker along the way. Roana then led me through the front office, outside as we took a right towards the back of the station. Sure enough, several tall wooden barrels of what evidently was mead tea had been delivered now. _Gerhard Tapperier Selskapet_, read the black stencilled letters on each of them.

"Gerhard Tapperier Selskapet?" I wondered looking at them.

"Gerhard Bottlers Company—the sole brewer of mead tea on the outside," my mate replied. "It's very popular in the two establishments it's served in . . . one being my uncle's inn, of course. It's also beginning to be test-marketed as a mild alcoholic beverage, although I don't know if it will taste as good in cans or bottles."

"Test marketed? By whom?" I asked.

"Lance," she sighed, "what do you think pays for all the syringes and medical supplies we use, not to mention our Outside network? Didn't I tell you all this up front?"

"No, actually, you didn't," I noted. "But I have been wondering about that."

"Well it's huge, and it's complicated," she sighed. "I can explain it to you, but it would take a little time, and I get a headache just thinking about it at times. Besides, our dragons, Substance at least, will be wanting their tea."

"Okay, sorry I asked," I replied as Roana pried the top off of one of the casks with a crowbar.

"No, Lance, I'm sorry," she apologised laying a hand on my arm as she now invited me with a look to dip my bucket for Substance first, along with another for Spring as well.

"It's okay," I assured, looking at her as I dipped and pulled my buckets back out one at a time. "I know all about 'need to know,' and I don't really need to know here."

"Dealing with or even thinking about the Outside has always been work to me," Roana sighed as she now dipped her bucket for Rökkr, along with a bucket for the two of us to draw tea from. "It's another reason why I prefer just living on the island and treating dragons and animals. I don't like dealing with the outside world, Lance. But for the dragons, I've had to . . . and I've done it well."

"That I can see, Major," I agreed.

"Please don't call me that," she almost groaned, "at least when we're not on duty with the Outside militaries."

"Now you know how I feel about being called 'Chief' at times," I smiled. "But I'm getting used to it."

"This is our day off though," she gently reminded me as she put the lid back on the cask and we began walking back with our buckets. "So let's just make it Lance and Roana, okay?"

"Yes . . . dear," I now mischievously quipped.

"You want a bucket of mead tea over your head, Mister?" she threatened, lifting a bucket partway there as we walked back together.

"Gotta have a little fun, once in a while," I smiled.

"We haven't really had that since the battle . . . have we?" she realized more gently beside me.

"We've had feasts, as well as intimate moments here and there," I said.

"But we haven't wasted tea yet, have we?" she replied as we approached the station's front door again on the concrete walkway that ran alongside the building next to a gravel parking area and lawn.

"Wasted tea?" I wondered.

I had barely finished my question before Roana had quickly set down one bucket and then immediately doused me with the other one.

"You are gonna regret that," I ruefully warned, setting down both my buckets as she now ran away across the grass towards the helipad. I just ran after her, leaping and catching her around the midsection as I tackled her down onto the grass while she laughed and screamed hysterically.

"Gotcha," I smiled as I rolled her onto her back and took her into my arms on that grass. She just smiled back at me, looking into my eyes, before we kissed, deeply.

"Mmmmm," she sighed, interrupting our kiss. "You taste good."

I just laughed as our kissing resumed, and got more intense. There was something about lying with her in freshly mown grass, even though I had no idea who was keeping it mown. It was like I was a teenager again, and Roana was the prom queen I had never gotten close to like this, but had always wanted to.

"Why are you stopping?" she now asked underneath me.

"You're just so beautiful, Roana," I admired, awakening from those thoughts and fantasies as I looked at her loose, long blonde hair and her soothingly enchanting face with its occasional freckles here and there. "I rarely get to just stop, and look at you."

"Lance . . ." she smiled.

"Besides," I then continued, "if Spring is right though, we're being watched."

"So?" my mate brazenly replied.

"So?" I replied back in a somewhat different tone with just a little amazement.

"We're Viking," she replied. "We have something of a lusty reputation to maintain. I'm sure the guards will turn their backs if they're around."

"Well, I don't want them to have to," I decided, now looking away and sitting up.

"Lance, summer's ending," my mate said as she continued to lie on the grass. "Soon, being indoors will be mostly all we will know. Couldn't we just play, as a couple, a little on this lawn? I've worked hard, even fought, Lance. We both have. I think we deserve a little intense play, too, even an understanding break from those who are watching us from the woods."

I sat on the lawn, looking at Roana. "I can't argue with what you say," I admitted.

"And I can't argue with your hesitation, or consideration for our guards, or gallant modesty for that matter," she conceded, while still laying on the lawn and holding a hand out for me.

I relented out of love, and laid back beside her on that grass, taking her into my arms again.

"Besides, I probably know some of them personally anyway," she added. "I don't need to embarrass friends . . . or my mate."

"What would you like?" I asked openly, just caressing the side of her head and hair now with my fingers.

"How about you just surprise me sometime, and just lie with me now," she asked.

"Dragons are waiting for their tea," I remembered.

"Always something to be done," she sighed now sitting up from me.

"I shouldn't have said that, Roana . . . at least for a moment here," I said. "I'm sorry."

"Substance doesn't get a day off, or even a moment, from being blind," my mate replied, now rising to her feet once more.

The weight of our daily reality now had returned, and the playful magic had departed.

"Roana," I said regretfully as I now stood up, too, "what can I do for you today?"

"Surprise me," she replied with a mixture of resignation and irritation as she began walking back across the lawn to pick up her buckets again.

_Okay,_ I thought silently to myself with this latest confirmation of what was seeming to become a theme around me today . . . _I will._

Knowing now just what I wanted to do, I had to find an excuse to get apart from Roana though . . . one her sharp mind would easily accept.

"Here," I said then rushing past her and picking up the three remaining full buckets of tea ahead of her myself. "Why don't you go start a nice shower, and I'll take care of all the dragons, even go refill a bucket for the two of us, and join you shortly."

"Okayy . . ." she replied uncertainly. "Thanks. That is a bit of a surprise already. But join me soon, and I might repay this favour, in a _verrry_ nice way."

"You're on," I accepted, as she now headed for the shower, while I went to give the three dragons their morning buckets of tea in the boathouse space.

"Where Roana?" Substance wondered as I set her bucket in front of her, perceptively not hearing or otherwise sensing my mate around us. Rökkr and Spring had returned with fish, and all three were enjoying their morning breakfasts now.

"She's in the shower . . . warm rain," I casually replied to Substance, before adding more quietly, "I want to surprise her with something, okay? Would you three be alright on your own for the day?"

"Do it," Substance warmly replied as Rökkr and Spring nodded their agreement and assurance as well. "Thannks, Lannce . . . for letting me know."

"My thanks to all of you," I replied as I hugged her and then left our dragons. "I want to do something wonderful for Roana . . . while we still can here."

Soon alone in the station's office, at first I thought my next step would involve picking up a phone on one of the desks. But as I continued to hear Roana in the shower, no doubt waiting for me to join her . . . I didn't know who to call, or whom I _could_ call.

"Be right back!" I said loudly down the hall towards her instead, without further explanation. I just dashed back into the boathouse space, pulling on the rest of my clothes. "I'm going outside, arranging a surprise," I quickly explained to Substance and the other dragons as I was dressing, before I then dashed out the station's front door and jogged fairly rapidly across the gravelled parking area and past the helipad onto the forested approach road, expecting, even looking to soon encounter whatever our security cordon was.

I didn't have to jog far along that road into the woods before encountering a large camouflaged and military-looking van, which was parked across the entire width of the road.

"Can I help you, Chief?" I heard to my surprise in very good English behind me.

I found I had even automatically put my cloak on without thinking.

I turned to see a man my height with short-cropped, blonde hair in what looked to be civilian hunting camouflage with a cap, but sporting an M-16 assault rifle, with a grenade launcher no less.

"FSK or FSA?" was my first question to him.

"Neither," he replied. "Outside Guardian of Berk. We all are at this post. We wouldn't trust Norwegians with this last line of defence."

"I'm sorry I haven't come to meet you before," I apologised.

"You're not supposed to," the man assured. "We say if you have to see us, or we you, we have failed. But is there a reason you are out here, sir?"

"Yes actually," I said. "I'd like to rent a car, and take my mate on a surprise trip."

"Where to, sir?" he asked.

"Well to the town nearby, if you must know," I replied. "I've been wanting to check out that restaurant our people supposedly run there. But I don't want a fuss or entourage around, if that's possible."

"What time would you like to be picked up, sir?" he asked.

"I can't drive myself then?" I queried.

"We'd rather you didn't, sir," the Outside Guardian replied, "especially given recent events."

"A 'packaged date' to town?" I surmised.

"Would you like a set of outside clothing for you and your mate?" he asked. "We would suggest you at least leave the bearskin cloak behind."

"I wanted this to be a casual, even romantic surprise," I sighed, "not a clandestine mission."

"Understood, sir," the man replied. "We'll just have windbreaker parkas for each of you in the car. We can have it all at the lifeboat station in thirty minutes if you'd like."

"Very well," I reluctantly accepted with a sigh. "Know that I deeply appreciate all that you and everyone else does," I added.

"Your job, your life, sir," he replied, "is the hardest of any of ours, especially coming from the outside as you have. That's why we do all that we are. Fyrir því drekar."

"Yes," I acknowledged with respect towards him, "fyrir því drekar."

He then accompanied me back towards the station.

"What pays for all this?" I wondered as the Outside Guardian and I walked, reviving my curiosity on that after not getting much of an answer from Roana on the topic.

"The world's oldest sovereign investment fund," he replied. "It's simply called the Gerhard Fund, after our founder."

"Prince Gerhard of Stormgolt?" I queried, remembering that name from the journal.

"Gerhard of Berk," he corrected. "Baron Gerhard to everyone on the outside."

"You guys have a conglomerate, too?" I wondered. "One that includes Gerhard Tapperier Selskapet?"

"Yes," he replied. "One of our Outside Berker businesses. The Thirty-Ninth Baroness Gerhard oversees it all herself, and commands all of us."

"Really," I remarked with some surprise.

"She is the first woman to do so," he noted proudly.

"She's not the only woman who should lead," I now quietly sighed out loud to myself. "Perhaps Roana should have been chief as well."

"Sir, if I may," my escort volunteered, "I've been part of Roana's detail when she's been on the outside in recent years. When she has been out here, representing the elders, it was stressful for her. She was lonely . . . even I could tell. Rökkr wasn't enough for her. We were all preparing for her to be named chief eventually though, and guarding her as such, as she was the only one of you on the island who could also function at high levels on the outside. When word reached her though that we had discovered you in Texas, at your lab near Houston . . . she asked us to start ensuring you were protected—which wasn't easy, given all the NASA and Defense Department security you worked within then—even as her uncle was writing you, inviting you to Norway. She wanted you here, sir. And if she had wanted to be chief, I'm sure the village would have elected her."

I looked down, feeling moved.

"I haven't seen her in nine months now, sir," he added, "but from all I hear, she is happier than she has ever been."

"What's your name, Guardian?" I asked him with respect.

"Oleg, sir," he said as he now stopped at the edge of the woods near the station. "The less you know about us, the better, but just ask for Oleg. I'm the only one with that name in this core unit around you and the island."

"Could you be our driver, Oleg?" I asked. "I'm sure Roana would like to see you again."

"Yes sir," he quietly smiled. "I'll have the car here myself in about half an hour."

We shook hands and parted. As I turned back towards the station, I saw Roana coming out the front door, rubbing her hair dry with a towel while now fully dressed in village clothing for the day.

"There you are!" she said as I walked towards her across the helipad. "I was turning into a prune waiting for you in that shower, so I gave up. What on earth have you been doing?"

"I remembered I left the barrel open," I casually covered, albeit with a bit of a smile. "So I closed it, and then heard something on the approach road and thought I'd quickly check it out, maybe say hello to our guards."

"Were you planning on actually joining me in the shower?" she asked, her irritation once more clearly returning.

"Yes," I said. "Sorry again. Maybe it's just my day for screw-ups here."

"I see our Outside Guardians turned you back," she gently chided. "You're not supposed to be walking out that way, under any circumstances."

"I know that . . . now," I replied, deciding to play along and keep my surprise hidden for as long as possible.

"I missed you in that shower," she then sighed, softening as we finally met up close.

"I'm sorry," I apologised, now bringing her into my arms. "You want a do over?" I then invited, calculating I had just enough time, and it would be a way of keeping her distracted. Besides, I needed a shower anyway, especially before we went to town.

Roana smiled, even grinned, in acceptance . . . but then gave me a probing look as my gaze lingered on her. "What is it?" she asked.

"You," I said in appreciation of her. "Just you."

She let the white towel she was drying her hair with just fall about her shoulders, sharing a kiss with me before I ushered her back inside.

— — — — —

With laughter, even passion, soon restored; a while later, Roana and I emerged from the shower, feeling much better.

"Hands against the wall! Spread 'em!" I playfully ordered as my mate complied, angling herself against a bathroom wall opposite the shower. I then proceeded to rub her dry very vigourously with a fresh, fluffy white towel . . . a luxury unknown back in the village that I was still enjoying here—although the sheepskins there were nice, too.

A car then beeped outside, sending a shock through Roana that I could perceive right through the towel. In a flash, she had me forced against that same bathroom wall with just one arm as she flattened herself against the wall as well.

"Stay here!" Roana quietly instructed me, now on full 'battle alert', as she then moved to quickly pick up her tunic and put it on.

"Relax," I soothed, drawing her back to me. "It's one of our guards. He's here to drive us to town . . . for a date. Surpri-ise," I said in a sing-song way with a smile.

Roana now turned, looking at me. "Seriously?" she asked, pausing from her 'on guard' stance.

"Seriously," I assured. "You are challenging, even dangerous to try and surprise, you know that?"

"Lance . . ." she now sighed, almost with tears in her eyes, before surging to hold me tightly.

"I wanted to show you one good time away, before winter . . . as a way of making it up to you over the lawn thing," I said as I rocked her in my arms.

She laughed as she nonetheless gave me one serious kiss.

"Mind if I get dried and dressed?" I asked.

"Ahh-llow me," she sensuously offered. "Hands on the wall there, Mister. If I had to wait in here for you . . . the guard can wait a little out there for us."

"Yes, m'am," I replied as I willingly turned and spread my hands against the wall.

"It's 'Yes, miss,'" she corrected as she began to dry me with a certain . . . forcefulness, even command, "maybe even, 'Yes, mistress,' to you."

"Would you like your trip to town, or not . . . mistress?" I asked with a smile.

"Oooo . . ." she sighed as she rubbed me with another towel. "You are making the choice so _verrry_ hard here."

"I can make it even worse, mistress," I said, now turning around, taking her into my arms and forcefully kissing her.

Unfortunately, Spring then burst through the bathroom door.

"We know!" Roana and I both said together, without looking at him.

"Mitur . . . Sorry," our young dragon then meekly apologised as he withdrew.

Roana and I both lowered our heads.

"We're sorry, Spring. Vit erum því mitur," I apologised, looking at him. "It was a mating moment. Þat var mökun stund," I added, deciding to be honest.

Spring now just grunted as he remained still, looking at us both.

Roana suddenly laughed. "H-He said, 'It is very dangerous to interrupt dragons when they're doing that,'" she now translated, catching her breath. "And adds, 'Thanks for teaching me more about what human mating looks like.'"

"Spring, you're good. þú ert gótur," I assured, moving to give his head a warm rub as he looked at me. "But mistress," I then said, turning to Roana, "let's get dressed. We have a date."

— — — — —

Soon dressed in the best village clothing we each had, and me without the cloak this time, I ushered her out the front door. Rökkr and Substance just wished us a good time from their boathouse nest of bedding, with us leaving just one boathouse door open for them so they wouldn't get too cold, but could still get in and out. Spring just saw us off from inside the office, seeming nervous about meeting the Outside Guardian waiting for us.

"It's okay, Spring, Þat er allt í lagi," I encouraged one more time, but he wouldn't come.

"Just let him be," Roana encouraged. "Night Furies are still somewhat instinctively nervous about strangers, especially on the outside. We haven't really discouraged that, as it can be difficult to tell one of our Outside Berkers apart from a real Outsider."

"Alright, Spring, allt í lagi," I conceded. "But you want to be a brave guardian, don't you? Afraid of nothing. En þú vilja til vera a hugrakkur forrátamatur, finnst þér ekki? Hræddur um ekki neitt."

Now he stepped forward, even following us outside the door. Obviously Night Furies were instinctively guardians more than they were anything else.

"Oleg!" Roana exclaimed once we were outside the station, rushing to greet him with an embrace as he stood, now in a dark grey suit and tie, next to a black BMW sedan. It made me wonder if something had once been going on between them. But I stopped myself as Spring now stood next to me, glancing up at me. I recognized that Roana was entitled to a past though, and a private life—just as I once had. I was betting however that she was now glad we hadn't really done anything together on the lawn.

"Lance, come," she then turned and invited me, noticing I had lagged behind. I walked to them both and Roana then gave me a reassuring and tight embrace with both arms. "Thank you for setting this up, my mate," she gratefully said to me, before adding, "and yes, Oleg was my sanity when I was on envoy missions to the outside, especially after things with Ran had collapsed on the island. Oleg even gave me part of my security training . . . informally, anyway."

"You don't need to confess anything to me," I assured as I held her. "I trust you."

"I want you to know, my love," she replied, "so that you trust me even more. But you're married now, right, Oleg?" she said, turning towards him, but remaining in my arms. "That was part of our deal."

"Eira and I are expecting our first child," he assured as he now held the back door of the black sedan open for us, while glancing in a friendly way towards Spring, who hung back from us just a little.

"So if I hadn't come . . ." I couldn't help saying to Roana though, trying to put the pieces together.

"I would still be waiting for you, Lance," she assured, turning back to me, "even going to get you, with Oleg's help."

"She would, sir," he assured with a gentle smile as well. "I am an Outside Guardian at heart, not a Dragon Berker. I just couldn't live on that island as you do . . . and she didn't want to live anywhere else but with the dragons. Roana and I were on different paths in life, but we were together when we needed to be. I couldn't be happier for her now though, for both of you."

"You couldn't talk him into living there, but you tried again with me anyway?" I wondered to my mate again.

"I guess I must have taken a gamble," she admitted, her arms still around my neck, " . . . for love."

"You were supposed to become chief," I added, deciding to be equally honest.

Roana glanced back at Oleg briefly, as if he wasn't supposed to have let that slip, perhaps at least to me. "Someone who knew the outside had to be, soon, just as I've told you," she said, turning back to me. "But it's not about power or a title though. It's about what's best for the dragons . . . for all of us. And that's you more than me."

"You sure you don't want the cloak?" I asked her sincerely.

"I like seeing you in it," she assured now with a kiss. "Wearing it myself with you standing in the background, being an Ýsa and everything else that you are . . . it just wouldn't feel right. The way things are now does. The village looks at us as practically co-chiefs anyway . . . a circle of elders, the way it has long been. I don't think as an Outsider, you would have been elected if you weren't already mated with me. They've passed up Ýsas before, remember. Now take me out to dinner, you two."

"Yes, m'am," both Oleg and I instinctively replied together, to the shared laughter of all three of us.

"Þú ert gótur, Spring," Roana now assured to our dragon son just in Norse as was usual for her—for both of them, actually. "Þú getur farit til baka núna. Vit munum vera fínn."

He gave a little bark of acknowledgment and turned around heading back into the station, even closing the front door behind him to my surprise, as I then ushered Roana into the back seat of the sedan and joined her as Oleg shut our door. My mate continued to sit close, even tight against me on the tan-coloured leather seat, as we buckled our seat belts. Oleg entered in front, re-started the car, and began driving us along the one-lane road through the woods away from the station.

We soon encountered the camouflaged van, now off to the side, as equally camouflaged Outside Guardians stood smartly at attention as we passed. A moment later, we encountered a second check-point of several military vans and vehicles, this time with Norwegian soldiers in camouflage battle dress, wearing maroon berets with regimental badges on them, as they also came to attention, saluting.

Even though neither of us were in uniform . . . well, I suppose we were as villagers . . . Roana and I both saluted back facing ahead in acknowledgement. It felt like the right, and diplomatic, thing to do—especially as they were Outsider troops guarding us. Saluting back was a way of expressing our thanks and gratitude towards them.

"Hey, are those the Coastal Rangers who—" I began to wonder as I then turned to glance back at them.

"Guarded the loft building where we massed for the attack?" Roana finished for me. "Yes. Only a few elite units are cleared to deal with us, and they are one of them."

"They normally aren't stationed here," Oleg added as he continued to drive us along the road through the forest, "but are now, for as long as you're living in the station."

"Did they retake the station during the battle?" I wondered.

"No," Oleg said. "We were permitted that honour ourselves. I wasn't part of the direct assault force, but was part of the peripheral guard. We struck right as the rest of you were retaking the island."

I noticed that we were now being preceded and followed by other BMW sedans on the narrow road. One was red, the other blue however—presumably so as to draw less attention than an all-black motorcade would.

"You're the first sitting Chief of Berk to travel on the Outside," Oleg explained as he continued driving, " . . . since World War II anyway. We've been preparing this protocol for a while. But this is the first time it's actually been used. When she didn't fly in a helicopter, Roana only had a car in front of us."

"I am a friggin' head of state," I sighed.

"You are," Roana soothed to me as she held and rubbed my left arm. "But you're not alone. When I was out here on envoys, I was alone. I needed Oleg. I hope you understand."

"I do," I replied as I now put my left arm around her and took her hand. "That I get to be with you at all . . . that's the miracle."

"You are just as much of a miracle to me," she assured with a kiss, "and you always will be."

We passed through a final checkpoint of a couple police cars and traffic barricades that were moved to one side. There was also a construction crew in evidence building what looked like a permanent gate and perimeter fence. These people were not coming to attention though, presumably to avoid drawing interest to our motorcade as we now emerged and turned right onto a more primary, and public, two-lane road at the other edge of the forest. Less than a mile of forest and three check points, as well as likely a number of soldiers and Outside Guardians scattered in the woods were all that separated us from the outside world.

"Those are more Outside Guardians," Oleg noted as we passed them. "We have an entire rural district police force of our own out here, which secretly liaises with the FSA within the Defence Ministry in Oslo, as well as ostensibly reporting to the Ministry of Justice and Police in Oslo as well. Plus, we're turning this into a secured Coast Guard station now with a coded entry gate and cameras—still run by our people, of course. Dragon Riders will be able to land at the station with less risk of Outsiders just wandering in at the wrong time. But with that beach gone and the MJK on your island with radio capability now, there may be a lot less reason for Dragon Riders to come to the station."

"Perhaps a lot less for them to do in general," I noted with mixed feelings. "But there a lot of Outside Berkers here then?" I asked.

"We have enough of a voting block that allows us to keep at least one or two seats in the Storting or national parliament in Oslo, as well as controlling several town councils locally," Oleg continued. "When legislative government took hold during the Nineteenth Century in the Riksakt or treaty union with Sweden, our Outside leaders quietly moved and spread many of us around this one area to ensure we had representation in the developing parliament, and could act on our own behalf within the Storting when nobility at a royal court could no longer intercede for us. We've been carefully pledged to the dominant party in Norway for some decades now, who keep our candidates high enough on their proportional seating lists to ensure we get seated, and occasionally grant us ministerships in the Defence and Fisheries ministries we are most interested in. The party leaders and politicians without top security clearances know us as a Viking legacy tribe or ethnic group that sticks together, but not about the island or what's there. We have a tribal corporation in the Gerhard Fund, with ample resources and that has endured and been wisely managed by our Barons since Medieval times—who are our hereditary rather than elected 'chiefs' on the outside by the way; although the community has chosen, even vetoed, just who becomes Baron in the Gerhard family at times, as well as orchestrating marriages. We just 'manage' our tribal royal family here, I suppose . . . which might be why it's all lasted so long."

"Amazing," I appreciated. "So why aren't chiefs on the island, elders for that matter, 'managed' that way, too?"

"Because we haven't needed to maintain the appearance of a hereditary Barony on the island," Roana chimed in, "and haven't wanted to."

"Over the centuries, if the Barony hadn't been continued, our fund and assets would have been broken up, and our Outside Berker community might have disintegrated," our driver confirmed. "We needed the Barony to continue here, so that we could protect and support you there. The village hasn't needed a dynasty to hold it together, legally and asset-wise at least, like we have. But it all ensures that we are respected, even valued and taken seriously on the outside. We also of course have Outside Berkers strategically placed within the national civil service among various ministries," he continued. "The FSA is aware of, and tolerates our activities within Norwegian society and government, recognising the need for protection of our interests and secrecy. It is all a delicate game of politics and business that is fortunately not my expertise, but is largely the purview of the Baroness and very skilled advisors around her from among our people."

"How do you keep the secret though," I asked, "through so many people and generations?"

"The Viking, even Norse, spirit," he replied. "A sense of dedication towards one's tribe, especially the dragons, and what's right, no matter what. It's what enabled people across these lands to organize and sabotage the well-guarded Nazi heavy water operation vital to their atomic programme during World War II. We Outside Berkers were an active part of that, and the war resistance in general. We even orchestrated the negotiations that led to the Berk Sovereignty Treaty with the Allies. Those treaty negotiations were actually a reward for work we were doing for them. The Thirty-Eighth Baron Gerhard drove a good, hard bargain there."

"There's so much I don't know as chief here," I quietly sighed to Roana. She just kissed me warmly.

"But among Outside Berkers," he continued, "we pass both our legacy and duty as a sacred trust down within families, generation after generation. Children on the outside here are not told directly about Berk as it is now initially, but our heritage surrounds them in our households and even communities as myth and tradition as they grow up. When they reach an appropriate age, usually sixteen or seventeen, one or both parents sit down with them and the family copy of the journal, and just talk with them, explaining that the toy dragons they have been playing with and the stories they have been hearing their entire lives represent real dragons that are still with us. Having grown up with Berk as legend, it is not such a shock when it is revealed to be a modern reality as well. Lately the parents have been showing the teens photographs, sometimes with the parents standing alongside the dragons."

"I can see how that would help," I agreed, before turning to Roana. "It probably would have been better if you'd been able to show me a picture of you and Rökkr," I then said to her, "_before_ you introduced me to him."

"You freaked out, huh?" Roana smiled.

"You could say that," I sheepishly admitted.

"I'll tell my past self that," she assured, "next time I see her."

"But the parents then offer their children the choice of continuing as an Outside Berker," Oleg resumed, "or forgetting about the whole thing, literally, with a memory injection. They show them a memory syringe to assure them it is real, and explain why things must be the way they are. Sometimes a young adult will even meet one of our Outside leaders, whom they have likely known before in other capacities anyway. But some teenagers choose a normal life truly on the outside. They are injected and nothing more is said to them after they wake up. They can remain among us, but we encourage them to move truly to the outside, even helping them with university educations elsewhere and jobs. With little industry or farming, there is not much for anyone to stay or be drawn here for, unless they are an Outside Berker.

"The rest of us though know we are guarding something sacred," he continued, "even if we never see it. Those of us who choose this life and knowledge are then screened and gradually trained at our own small private schools. Most of us are permitted to meet dragons and Dragon Riders at some point . . . a few are even recruited to join you in living on the island. We're doing another recruitment again now, with the battle over and your population depleted. I was offered a life there, for the second or third time, but I decided to remain out here. I like the freedom to vacation regularly in warm places like Italy and Spain too much to give that up, not to mention modern conveniences."

"I know what you mean, Oleg," I sighed as I looked out my car window and saw other roadway traffic now for the first time in months.

"You miss this?" Roana asked me as our car now picked up more speed.

"I don't know," I replied, glancing at her.

"It's why the separation has been maintained the way it is, for as long as it has," she said as she joined me in looking out my window. "The two ways of life are very different, even perhaps incompatible. But there's an underlying reason we do it all . . ."

"I know," I said, "fyrir því drekar."

"That one phrase," Oleg noted, "has kept our people together, and focused, for almost a thousand years—like perhaps nothing else ever has for a people. If we fail, those dragons, and our legacy and purpose . . . they all die. Those three words have ended arguments, prevented feuds and divisions, and so much more. That's why they are so sacred to us. That is why we do this."

I just continued quietly looking out the window.

This was supposed to be a quiet, casual, even intimate date. Now though, it was an odyssey into contrasting lifestyles and choices . . . an odyssey I was no longer sure I wanted to be making.


	31. Chapter 31

Before long, Roana and I arrived in the nearby village of Wønur in our small and hopefully inconspicuous motorcade. It was a quintessential Norwegian seaside town, filled with brightly painted two and three storey wooden buildings all seemingly crammed close together. The village was situated next to a sheltered, picturesque inland sea of the deepest blue water this fairly sunny afternoon, and surrounded by majestic, snow-capped mountains. Even though I now lived literally less than twenty miles away, I wanted to take home a poster of what I was seeing out the car window . . . maybe a calendar.

"We are gonna have to come here more often," I admired.

"We can't, Lance," Roana quietly said next to me, " . . . or at least we shouldn't."

I looked at her briefly. "That is an awful lot to give up," I tried to gently reply.

"You weren't thinking about that until you came out here, were you?" she answered. "It's why when we live there, for the most part we stay there. It has to be that way."

"You were visiting your uncle regularly," I noted.

"I haven't been doing that lately, have I?" she replied. "Rökkr has told me I made only rare nighttime visits, mostly in preparation for and around your coming there."

"That's not really what your past self told me," I mildly disagreed. "She and I were planning regular trips there."

"I should have known better," she said. "Besides, we're leaders now. Every time we go to the Outside, it's a lot of work for our Guardians, isn't it, Oleg?"

"We did have to scramble a bit," he admitted, "but it's a good test and exercise. We need to keep on our toes. You two are worth it," Oleg smiled, looking at us in his rear-view mirror.

Somehow, our driver had expertly placated both Roana and myself. My mate even indicated so by giving me a conciliatory kiss on the cheek.

"I'm sorry," I quietly said to her.

"I love you, too," she whispered warmly into my ear. "And thank you again for this."

"It's far from over yet," I assured with a smile, sitting back in my plush leather seat and stretching in preparation for our arrival at the restaurant. "We own these cars?" I then asked Oleg, as I glanced in front and behind at our motorcade again.

"One of us runs a small BMW dealership and rental agency," Oleg replied as we drove through the narrow and fairly busy streets of the town. "We have members of our community in any industry or sector we need. We never have problems getting or arranging for anything we want."

"All paid for by the fund," I noted.

"Yes, sir," Oleg replied as Roana now looked at me with concern, rubbing my hand.

"Enough shop talk, okay?" she encouraged. "We're supposed to be having a good time, not be pondering all that surrounds and supports us."

"You're right," I agreed, as we looked out a side window together. "This is very nice," I then said, as we were driven into the heart of the small downtown waterfront. "You all perhaps should have drawn me here instead."

"My uncle was down south," my mate noted, "and he really wanted to be involved in matching you and I up. He just did."

"I'm glad he did," I smiled at her. "And you know," I decided to add, "I appreciate you all the more, now that I really know I wasn't the only one interested in you. Perhaps I should have known this sooner, especially when you were waking up after those Soviet memory drugs. It might have cleared up my lingering hesitations."

"No," Roana warmly countered, while nonetheless slipping Oleg a glance via the rear view mirror in front.

"I'm sorry that happened, Roana," Oleg said as he drove. "I heard about it."

"I've forgotten a year, Oleg," my mate said next to me. "But Rökkr and Lance have filled me in on a few things here and there."

"Our last encounter was bittersweet anyway," our driver said. "It is better not remembered."

"I can't believe I have you," I admired to Roana now.

"Believe it," she replied as she looked steadily at me. "Please believe it."

"Here we are," Oleg then announced as he pulled us to the curb in front of a row of classic red and white wooden clapboard buildings along the harbourfront. "The Kafé Berk," he introduced.

"Kafé Berk?" I wondered as I now saw those very words spelled out in big, gold lettering across a storefront window near our car. "Talk about hiding in plain sight."

"Exactly," Roana replied next to me. "If any of us lets slip about Berk or dragons on the outside, anyone else will think we're referring to this place. It is quite famous and popular in the area here, by design."

Oleg then turned to us from his front seat. "Now," he said, "there will be Outside Guardians around you in various plain clothes. You don't need to know who they are. If you need us, or have any problems whatsoever, just start speaking in Old Norse. Do not use our motto though."

"But I was looking forward to using that," I quipped, "to see if it would get us a meal."

Roana gave me a bit of an irked look. "Sacred words," she reminded me.

"Sorry," I apologised to both of them.

"You have not grown up with them your entire life," Oleg accepted. "But that is already taken care of," he then assured. "You will not see a bill here. You are reserved under Mister and Misses Lansen . . . something you can hopefully easily remember with your first name, sir. And here are your parkas," our driver added as he passed them to us.

"Quite stylish," I admired as I put on my blue one while Roana donned a purple parka over her village clothing. In them, we now looked like ordinary tourists, even hikers in our rough clothing, rather than medieval Vikings or Norse. "Can we keep these?" I added.

"They wouldn't stand up to our rough hand washing," my mate reminded me as she now zipped hers up partway.

"I can commandeer the use of that military washing machine in the bunker," I retorted.

"No you won't," my mate replied.

"Yes, Chief," I playfully countered.

Roana just kissed me as Oleg got out and came around to open our door on the right side of the car. I then exited first and my mate followed.

"Wow, standing on a city sidewalk again," I sighed with a deep breath.

"Lance, don't blow cover," Roana quietly whispered in my ear, masking it with a kiss.

I just nodded with a glance to her now. "This is a date," I said, "and we're supposed to be having fun."

"I have to move the car," Oleg then excused beside us. "Enjoy yourselves. I'll be around."

"How do we contact you when we're ready?" I asked.

"Just ask for me at the kafé's front desk," he replied. "They can call for me."

"You going to have dinner?" I suggested.

"Already ate before, sir," he quietly replied. "I'm on duty as long as you are out here. But do take your time and enjoy yourselves, please . . . for Roana's sake."

"You're right, Oleg," I accepted as Roana and I exchanged a warm look now. "Thank you."

"Yes, thank you, Oleg," Roana echoed as well as I now opened one of two large, glass-paned double doors and ushered her inside what looked to be a very busy and popular local eatery indeed. As we both walked in through the doorway, we found the place abuzz with lots of people talking. Dragons were everywhere . . . at least representations of them. There were drawings and paintings of them on the walls, as well as models of them hanging from the wooden rafters overhead, even a gift shop off to the side. I could have bought a small stuffed Night Fury or Nightmare if I had wanted to. The shelves were full of them in there.

"They are very accurate and lifelike," I marvelled as I looked around us.

"Shhhh," Roana quietly chided me.

"Sorry," I said, turning my attention towards the maître d' at his podium. "Table for two, under Lansen," I requested in English, fortunately able to remember our cover name for the afternoon. I figured I'd just be a Canadian tourist, rather than try out my limited Bokmål, or risk triggering a security alert if I used Old Norse.

"Lance?" I then heard behind me. The voice was female . . . but it wasn't Roana.

My blood ran cold, even freezing.

"Melanie . . . ?" I said turning around, knowing that voice anywhere. Suddenly I was face to face with the redheaded woman I had known for years, and had once been married to.

"Forrátamenn," Roana then swiftly called in Norse beside me. Four men in various types of dress, including the maître d', then surrounded Roana and myself, as well as Melanie and the blonde-haired man I recognized that she had run off with. I noticed he was wearing a knapsack with a toddler in it.

"Stötva," I then countermanded, also in Norse, seeing at least one of our guardians subtly producing a syringe, probably to unobtrusively use to disable my ex-wife and her current beau.

"Lance . . . you're—" Melanie began saying, almost in shock.

"Not here!" I interrupted quietly but sharply just inches now from her face amid the crowd that pressed around us at the maître d's podium, before turning back to the maître d'. "Do you have . . . private dining accommodations?" I then quietly asked him. "I think it would be best for all concerned."

"This way, sir," he gestured in English, leading us himself through the main dining room to a closed set of double doors that were slid open to reveal a very nice small, wood-paneled dining room with a large-windowed view of the harbour and rows of fishing boats and other craft docked outside the restaurant.

Once the four of us, and our plainclothes guards, were inside the room, two Outside Guardians shut and physically blocked the double doors.

"My apologies, Chief," the maître d' then said to me in English. "Our security has failed you. I had no idea anyone else who would recognize you would be here."

"_Chief?_" my ex-wife said incredulously as she struggled to get free of the two Guardians who were now restraining her.

"Melanie, this is top secret," I cautioned.

"I'd say so," she shot back. "You're dead."

"This is my former wife, Melanie . . . Gusserman now, right?" I asked her in confirmation as I attempted to introduce her to the Outside Berker entourage surrounding us all.

My ex-wife nodded, with a clear mixture of confusion, fear, and most definitely anger in her eyes.

"And this is her . . . husband," I hesitated again, "Douglas Gusserman. They both have top secret clearances as well . . . in the U.S. anyway."

Our Outside Guardians now stood down, releasing Melanie and her current husband and stepping back.

"Lance, what the _hell_ are you doing alive?" my ex-wife pointedly asked me.

"Nice to see you, too," I responded frostily.

"I should have been told if it was a faked death!" she continued. "I actually mourned for you, at your memorial your NASA colleagues held back in Texas."

"Nice to know," I sighed, realizing what a disaster this afternoon now was. "I'm sorry, Roana," I apologised regretfully, looking at my mate.

"It's not your fault," Roana soothed, drawing close to me. The contrast between my former and current partners could not be clearer to me now.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, now looking back at my ex.

"Taking a drive up the coast for a break," she replied, "after trying to collect the last of your personal effects from that inn you stayed at."

"That was a while ago now," I remarked with a little amazement.

"It took a while to make arrangements to preserve the scene and anything you may have left at the inn," she responded.

Knowing I had left nothing behind there worth trying to claim, I just rolled my eyes. Oleg then joined us via a side door from the kitchen—one that was evidently being guarded on the outside, as well as on our side. He had a bud in his ear, and seemed to be fully appraised of what was going on.

"Herra minn," he said to me in Norse, "undir sitareglur okkar, þetta er brot. Þeir kunna at hafa öryggi úthreinsun, en þeir ættu ekki at vita. Ek mæli met inndælingu."

"No injections," I countermanded in English. "She's visibly pregnant, and Douglas there is carrying a child in that knapsack anyway."

"Lance, what the _hell_ is this?" my ex-wife demanded.

I took a deep breath . . . a _very_ deep breath. Now it was my turn to conduct a 'first contact' situation. "Melanie," I finally said, "these dragons you see on the walls, hanging from the rafters around you in this restaurant, and even in the gift shop . . . they represent real dragons. I live with those dragons now, and I'm working to save them from extinction."

My ex-wife now just stood there a few feet from me, absolutely slack-jawed.

"They live on an island, in a quarantined wildlife reserve, not far from here," I continued. "A symbiotic culture has evolved over the course of almost a thousand years between six breeds of dragons, and a Viking tribe that has been protecting them, separate from the outside world. I've found I'm descended from that tribe, from a legendary founding chief of it, no less. They drew me back, and now . . . they've recently elected me chief, in the aftermath of a battle we fought against Soviet commandos, who were trying to take me."

"I warned you not to go overseas on vacation, Lance," Melanie now berated me. "Lazarus has made you a target . . . a big and tempting one. You need to be back home, where you can be properly protected."

"I think I'm pretty well protected now," I said, looking at the several Outside Guardians gathered around us. "Don't you?"

"You're reckless, and irresponsible," my ex countered, "and disloyal to our country. You know Lazarus can work. You're just withholding the other protein sequences you know would allow it to."

I sighed, realizing that not only had a marital argument been revived, but an ultra-top secret bit of information had just been let out.

"I am Canadian, or was," I answered. "I just had a job in America. With that far more reckless cowboy of a presidential candidate you like seeming poised to be elected and headed for the White House . . . that project had to die. I no longer know the composition of the sequences, and they no longer exist! That is extremely classified by the way, everyone," I said to those around me. "And I had personal authorization, direct from the _current_ president, to destroy my findings and work in that area and leave Lazarus looking like a failure. He didn't want to enable us, or any successor of his, to successfully fight a nuclear World War III either."

"Traitor!" my ex-wife coldly charged.

"No, saviour!" Roana countered, stepping in front of me. "You idiotic woman! You would wreck our planet, just so your nation could win and dominate?"

"Better us than the Soviets," Melanie more quietly replied. An uncomfortable truth had now been spoken.

The young toddler in Douglas' knapsack now began crying. The tension in the room was that thick.

"Look," I sighed, "we're making your child cry. It's over, Melanie . . . both us, and my work there. I've been released, I've found a new, peaceful life and purpose here . . . and I'm happy at last, very happy. I'm no longer facing the possibility of being responsible for the deaths or disfigurement of millions, even billions of people anymore," I sniffed as Roana drew close to me in support. "I will not be like Robert Oppenheimer, who went to his grave, haunted by the work he had done. Please . . . let me, and this, go. I can force you and Douglas to forget everything you have just heard and seen, even finding me here, with a snap of my fingers now. But I don't know what effect the memory drugs they use here have on the unborn . . . and even for your sake, I don't want to find out or risk it."

"Please, do as he asks," Roana now said more gently beside me. "You will be escorted to Oslo, or a designated Norwegian military base for debriefing, and then likely flown home, or at least out of Norway at the request of the sovereign nation of Berk, per our classified treaty with both Norway and the United States."

"So that's it?" Melanie now responded incredulously. "I can know you're alive, but have no further contact? Even set foot in the country you now call home?"

"Norway is a close ally of ours, even a protector and guarantor in a way," I said, "but my home now is the nation, tribe, and island of New Berk . . . and I am its chief and head. Roana here is my bonded mate, and leads it with me."

Roana now gave me a lingering glance of gratitude.

"If there is anything important though," I continued, "you can always contact me through NASA or the Norwegian Defence Ministry or FSA, using a code name and procedure you should be given during debriefing. Ask for it if they don't give it to you."

"So you won't even give me final molecular sequences and formulas on the commercially valuable medicine patents you were ready to apply for when you left?" my ex-wife now asked.

"I was applying for those at your insistence," I reminded her. "But I don't need the money now, and those were just cosmetic treatments for the vain, anyway . . . a waste of my time, really."

"Well, your son and I could use the money," Melanie said to my shock.

I now looked at the toddler in Douglas' knapsack.

"He's yours," my ex-wife confirmed. "I found I was six weeks pregnant within days after we went our separate ways. The paternity has been verified."

"You had an obligation to tell me," I coldly said to Melanie now.

"I was working up to that," she admitted with a degree of shame. "I was with Douglas though, and I thought—I was hoping—he could have been his, as Douglas and I had already been seeing each other for almost a year before you and I parted."

Roana now drew close to me in support again as I tried to show no emotion at something I pretty much felt had been true anyway.

"But then, the paternity tests came back a while after little Ronald here was born," Melanie continued. "I just finally wanted to be sure myself. You had already gone to Norway though, and soon I was informed by NASA you had died. But Lance, I am not giving him up, especially to wherever you are now."

"May I see him . . . please?" I quietly asked. Douglas made no motion as I walked over to him and lifted the now quiet child from the knapsack on his back.

I was acutely conscious of everyone watching me as I held the human son I was truly father to. Seeming to be about nine or so months old, he had my blue eyes and wavy wisps of brown hair, as opposed to Melanie's green eyes and red hair or Douglas' blonde hair. But this was a son I did not know. Even Spring, a dragon, felt more like my son to me than this infant did. I cradled the child silently though in my arms for a moment. No one else spoke either. My dream of fatherhood was realized—but I didn't want to torture this little boy with a divided family, or especially being torn between separated worlds.

"Live well, my son," I said quietly to him as I now embraced him closely, while shutting my eyes even more tightly. "I love you . . . and I always will."

I then silently placed him back safely inside Douglas' knapsack as the child looked at me with mostly confusion or indifference. To him, I was probably just another grown-up picking him up for a moment.

"But," I then said returning to Roana's side, "I am not going to ruin him with wealth from a dubious line of pharmaceuticals I wish I had never stumbled upon. I'm sure you and Douglas, with your work in defense research, will stumble on something that will make you both rich . . . but I will have no part in wrecking his life like that. He will be watched however, by our Outside Network. You will have no knowledge of who they are, or when they're watching. But when he is of age, he will be offered a chance to know his true parentage and ancestry, and given the choice to join me, and us. So raise him well," I clearly warned. "I will know if you don't."

"Family," Roana now interjected next to me with surprising conciliation, "is of great importance to our people, and we of Berk are good hosts, especially of family. So we invite you to stay for dinner. It's the least we can do, for disrupting your vacation . . . at least while arrangements for your escort and transportation are made now."

"I'm sorry," I turned and quietly said to my mate, unable for the moment to look her in the eye.

Roana just moved to kiss me, deeply—looking me right in the eyes as we ended that kiss. "No," she assured, "I'm grateful . . . even to you, Melanie," she added, turning her head towards my ex-wife while keeping her arms draped around my shoulders. "If you had not given him up, I would not have the soulful, loving, wonderful mate I have now. Lance was always of this land, this tribe. He just didn't fit in over in America, anymore than I did. Everything is as it should be. So come," she invited, pulling a wooden armchair at the main table in the room near the windows, "let's make peace, and have what we all came for—dinner. I for one am hungry."

I looked at my mate briefly. She just subtly nodded to me in encouragement.

"You are Co-Chief," I then whispered gratefully in her ear as I moved to offer her a seat at the table.

"Never forget it," she whispered back with a gentle smile in my ear as we began taking off our jackets.

"Allow us, sir and madam," Oleg invited as he and another guardian made a point of helping us to remove our jackets, while Melanie and Douglas were only belatedly offered help by other guardians in removing theirs. A subtle one-upsmanship seemed to be evident, with Berker pride in its leadership on show.

I couldn't miss the reaction that Melanie now had though to the medieval peasant or 'hippie' attire that Roana and I had concealed under our jackets. Fortunately, Roana just had her long hair pinned back under a broad leather barrette with an ivory pin through it, instead of in braids this time. I found I liked her hair better this way. I'm sure the two of us must have looked like we were fresh out of a Woodstock concert to my ex-wife however.

"Gone off the deep end getting back to nature," I heard Melanie muttering to herself.

Yep, my suspicions were confirmed. But once upon a time, I would have agreed with her. "Why thank you," I now smiled with a perverse pleasure though. "No washing machines where we're at, so we have to wear clothing that lasts. The jackets are provided as a cover while we're on the outside by our security detail."

"Unbelievable," my ex muttered again as she sat down, with a guardian now offering her a chair.

Roana seemed both relieved and proud that I was smiling now as we glanced at each other. I took a deep breath amid this now surreal atmosphere as I now sat myself down while most of our Outside Guardian entourage then began gradually withdrawing out of the small dining room.

"I hope you and Douglas are as happy as Roana and I are," I said charitably as I proceeded to pour glasses of wine for the four of us from a bottle already opened and placed on the table, while Douglas set the infant down in a high chair facing the windows between Melanie and myself, then seating himself next to my ex-wife and opposite Roana by the windows.

"No wine, pregnant," Melanie pointed out as I started to pour her glass.

"My mistake," I apologised. "Waiter, iced tea, extra lemon for the lady," I ordered instead to a server who was now at our tableside as I easily remembered my ex's preferences.

"And make it mead tea for the two of us," Roana requested to our server while laying a hand on my shoulder.

"Mead tea?" Douglas now queried across from us.

"A favourite with both humans and dragons in our village," my mate assured. "This is one of only two places on the outside that serves it."

"It has alcohol in it though, doesn't it?" Melanie asked.

"A little to some," I said.

"Give me the iced tea," she almost grumped to the server.

"I think I'll try the mead tea," Douglas decided, to Melanie's mild consternation. Just one look from my ex-wife when she and I had been married would have stopped me cold. But Douglas seemed to be immune. He was perhaps a better match, a better equal for her, than I had been.

— — — — —

Just one Outside Guardian watched us in the room in addition to the server who attended us, as dinner then proceeded . . . like something of a chess match.

"I'll have steak, medium, please," I decided to our server, looking up from the menu, which was printed in both Bokmål and English. I guessed they served a lot of international tourists here. Steak was a rare indulgence for me now—the first beef of any kind I had enjoyed since that pivotal buffet and talk I had shared with Roana back at the Drager Vertshus months ago.

"Why not? Me, too," Roana echoed, closing her menu.

"We'll have the salmon, both of us," Melanie ordered as she closed her menu, not giving Douglas a chance to decide for himself this time. "We don't often get salmon back in Texas. And my child will have your fish sticks," she added to the server.

I had to chuckle. "Salmon is a staple with us now," I smiled. "My dragon virtually lives on it, and I have it all too often."

"So they're pets to you?" my ex-wife wondered as she glanced at some dragon models suspended from the ceiling. "Sounds like expensive pets to me, given their apparent taste for salmon."

"Ohh no," I gently countered. "They're sentient, fully so. They have their own language, even dialects, as well as a culture, mythology and more. We have traditions, even rituals that we share in common with them. It would be as if humans lived together with apes, dolphins, or perhaps most aptly, Orca whales . . . with all being citizens in common with equal voices. Dragon and human children school together, we fly with them, even fight together as skilled warriors and guardians. We've been looking for alien intelligence in space, Melanie. But I've discovered it right here on Earth, on that island. It's everything I could have ever hoped to discover and work with."

Melanie eyed me sceptically, but fortunately no longer with great hostility or anger. "You always were more concerned with life out there, or at least elsewhere, rather than protecting an American way of life down here," she sighed.

I didn't rise to her bait though. Roana just glanced at me as she subtly placed her left hand on mine, just to be sure.

"So what are you and Douglas up to these days?" I pleasantly invited.

"You're no longer entitled to know," my ex-wife coolly responded.

"I still have my colonel's rank," I countered. "And Roana is a major in the Norwegian FSA with a top security clearance as well."

"Well, appearances can indeed be deceiving, can't they," Melanie dismissively noted.

"We prefer them that way," Roana parried without missing a beat however, as she sipped her wine again. "With apologies to your Teddy Roosevelt, it isn't always the biggest stick that wins, sometimes just the sharpest—the one you don't see coming."

"Roana was educated at Washington State University in America," I clarified while trying to restore peace again as well.

"You're kidding," Melanie now said as she looked at Roana. "That was my undergrad school, too, before I transferred. Didn't have quite the international studies or technology curricula I wanted—dual majors, you know—but I started there as it was where I lived. Wait . . . you were that European exchange student in McGonnel's International Studies 101 class, weren't you? Wearing those same type of clothes."

"I was," Roana smiled.

"You had a really thick Norwegian accent back then," my ex-wife now smiled as well.

"Medieval or Old Norse, actually," Roana gently corrected. "But I worked on it while I was there. My improved English has taken me places since," she then noted in a very understated way.

The doors then opened and several servers came in with silver covers over our first course salads.

"Could we say grace?" Melanie requested as our meals were set before us. "Lance, you were usually good at that," she added, putting me on the spot.

"Anda," I said taking up the challenge, while closing my eyes and taking Roana's hand, "færa frit, skilning og viturkenningu metal okkar eins og vit saman til at borta þat sem hefur verit veitt. Spirit, bring peace, understanding, and acceptance among us as we gather to eat what has been provided. Leyfa okkur at sjá kjarna annan, ekki bara skel. Allow us to see the essence of one another, not just the shell. Og hjálpa okkur at meta lífit og visku, og fyrir augliti þínu, í öllum formum þat, og þú, eru inn. And help us to value life and wisdom, and your presence, in all the forms it, and you, exist in. Fyrir okkur öll. For all of us."

"I see you really have gone Viking now, even changed religions," Melanie observed as we re-opened our eyes afterwards.

"Thank you," I accepted with a smile. "The dragons actually hum or sing their prayers to God though."

"These dragons recognize God?" she wondered with some surprise.

"They recognize essence and Spirit," I said. "They have no writings or dogma that all must believe."

"They value freedom, even in how to perceive the Eternal," Roana echoed, subtly shifting the conversation. "Freedom is a most precious right that we all value."

"Can't disagree there," Melanie concurred somewhat to my surprise as she began eating her salad. "Mmmm . . . very good salad," she then praised.

"It's a wild berry vinaigrette, something we created on our island," Roana noted. "Vinegar from wild berries, combined with apple vinegar, fish oil, and local herbal seasonings to mask the seafood taste."

"How come I haven't had this yet?" I wondered to my mate.

"You just haven't gone for the salads at feasts, and I'm not a very good cook who prepares multi-course meals at home," Roana shrugged as she began eating. "Like I have the time for that."

"True," I sighed with a smile. I now just had to put an arm around my mate and kiss her ear in appreciation. Roana was honest with seeming shortcomings in ways that Melanie would never have been. Roana looked back at me with a gentle, appreciative smile as she finished another bite.

"Well, you do look a bit thinner than you used to, Lance," my ex-wife just had to chime in though.

"Good physical labour," I said with pride, patting my midsection. "Taking care of the dragons, as well as our harvests and other things around the village where we live. We barely have time for a lunch, even snacks these days."

"You'd put all that talent, that brilliance, to waste . . . farming?" Melanie pointedly wondered. "Lance, your country needs you."

"Yes it does," Roana agreed to my surprise. "That's why he is valued as much as he is in Berk." I now suddenly felt I was in a tug of war between my old and current lives—not to mention between my old and current mates. "He's identified and alleviated a genetic calcium deficiency that was weakening the dragons' eggs and was killing both unborn hatchlings and their mothers. That is only the beginning of what he is accomplishing with us."

"They paying you?" Melanie wondered as she ate her salad.

"Nope, not a single krone," I said with a smile. "But I am richer now than I could ever want to be. I lack for nothing. We have a tribal fund and network on the outside that pays for whatever we need, but we have no need at all for money on the island itself."

Roana smiled at me as our main entrees now arrived. I was a Dragon Berker, not an Outsider anymore. Having been confronted with a contrast and choice, I was embracing Berk's ways fully. Roana gripped my right hand hard under the table, with a few tears of gratitude and love, even pride, leaking out of her eyes. I think I gave her the best gift of the day, right there. I just put my right arm around her again and kissed her, hard.

_Let them watch,_ I thought to myself as I just imagined Melanie and Douglas' reactions across the table. _Eat your heart out, Melanie,_ I also thought for good measure. "Sorry," I then added out loud once I had finished giving Roana some of the romance we richly deserved this afternoon, "we Vikings seize life as it happens. You would be amazed at some of the passion we share." I was having fun now. "It's all the medieval lust, just without the violence. The dragons have been real peacemakers among us. They just won't tolerate unnecessary strife, but will defend us to the death if we are threatened. They also roar when they mate. We do, too. So there's a fair amount of roaring going on around the village a lot of evenings . . . mornings, too, sometimes."

Now we really had Douglas' attention. "D-Do you have advanced electronics there . . . or the need for them?" he almost stammered, while Melanie turned and glared at him.

"No, we don't . . . to both questions," I casually replied. "But a Norwegian MJK special forces platoon is now encamped with us in our village since the battle with the Soviets, for extra protection, and they're bringing the first radio communications we've had, as well as some other things. We have limited electricity in the hillside lab and clinic bunker where I work doing my research—when I can these days—but otherwise we just talk, sing, have occasional village feasts, read," I said as I looked at Roana, " . . . and love. It's a good life."

This time Roana turned and reached to put her far right hand possessively around the back of my head and took me into a passionate kiss of her own. "Thank you," she just had to whisper in my ear afterwards. "Thank you, so much."

I knew then I had given my mate what I had been hoping to, right there.

"So there's no chance you would do anything on the outside?" Melanie then wondered as we all began carving into our main courses.

"No," I said straightforwardly as I enjoyed my first bite of steak. "As you've said, I'm dead there . . . and I wish to remain that way now."

"Those patents could be worth millions if they were completed," my ex-wife clearly hinted, "helping both your son . . . and your dragons."

"Oleg," I asked, knowing he was now guarding us in the room, "how's our fund doing?"

"Thirty-eight point five milliard, or billion as English-speakers would say, sir—at the last report I heard," he seemed to say with pride. "That's in kroner though. In U.S. dollars that would be about seven point eight billion. But that's before the annual tribal dividend payout coming up soon. It will shave a couple hundred million or so off the fund. Not that you islanders need to concern yourselves with that, really."

"Well," I sighed, looking back at my ex-wife again, "it really doesn't look like we need it, to be honest."

Now I had Melanie's attention.

"Let's eat," I deflected. "Our food's getting cold here."

Even Roana was smiling, loving where this table conversation was going. Without my trying all that hard, we now had both Douglas and Melanie _very_ interested in us . . . Douglas for our seemingly unreserved, even 'wanton' lifestyle, and Melanie for all the money we had easy access to. It could not have been a better dinner, considering. The steak was good, too.

— — — — —

During the meal, when Roana wasn't using her left hand for cutting food though, she was placing it on my right leg next to her, giving me firm rubs of simple connection and love. After all, it was what we had come for, as much as the food. It was enough though to make me eat left-handed almost exclusively, just so I could surreptitiously hold her hand with my right as often as possible. I saw both Melanie's and Douglas' hands remain on or above the table at all times however. There just wasn't much warmth evident between them. Theirs seemed to be a marriage that was all business—which suited Melanie anyway, from my experiences of her.

I was sitting right next to my human son though, as he sat in the high chair at the head of our table, somewhat playing with his food as young children did while Melanie fed him and otherwise cared for him as needed. I found that I couldn't look at him much however, without wanting to order our Guardians to simply take Melanie and Douglas away and leave my son with us. I couldn't do that to any of us though, even to Melanie, and especially to our son.

Roana gently brought me back to the present moment however, just silently rubbing my right thigh with her left hand as she slipped me a subtle smile. I took that hand of hers again in mine tightly as I silently blinked away a tear.

"They have very good desserts here," Roana suggested to all of us, distracting and covering for me again. Then she brought her lips to my ear. "Use this gift of time, with your son," she whispered with a kiss. "I'll help you keep everything together here. Don't waste this chance."

I was so very grateful to her.

"Waiter," I then said. "Would you go fetch a stuffed Night Fury dragon from the gift shop, for my son here?"

"Lance," Roana suggested, "why don't you take him yourself next door there, and let him pick one out? Just put your parka back on to cover your village clothing. And I promise," she then said, turning to Melanie and Douglas, "absolutely nothing will happen."

Melanie just silently nodded this time, to both Roana and myself. Not hiding my tears now, I rose from my chair and moved to lift my son from his. "Let's go get you something special," I invited.

"He can already walk a little," Melanie more gently assured as I then set him down on the floor and took his hand, as my son indeed began to walk a few slow steps with me. I soon picked him up though as Oleg then quietly talked into his wrist before opening one of the double doors for us. Two other plainclothes Guardians then joined us on the other side of the doors, as I went with my son across the crowded restaurant to the gift shop at the front. Once inside, and unable to stem the tears in my eyes, I quietly knelt down with him as we stopped in front of a shelf of stuffed Night Furies.

"Your daddy lives with these," I haltingly whispered to him as we looked at the black stuffed dragons. "One of them is a companion to me, whom I love . . . as much as I love you. Would you like to pick one out?"

My infant son then picked out one stuffed Night Fury, seemingly with a sense of wonder, even reverence. He then held it close to him, and looked at me. My son holding that stuffed dragon was a sight that now overwhelmed me. I closed my eyes and wept as I held him.

When I opened my eyes again, not only were our two Guardians standing close around us amid the crowd in the gift shop, but so were Douglas and Melanie, as well as Roana, with her parka on again. Even Melanie was now shedding a tear.

A flash went off as I stood up with both my son and his Night Fury in my arms. "I am sure all of you will want this," Oleg said as he lowered a camera. I could only nod.

But then, I picked up a stuffed Night Fury, too. "Daddy wants something to remember you by as well," I sniffed.

I then moved towards the cashier with my son and our purchases—suddenly remembering though that I didn't have any money, or even a wallet on me anymore. "It is already taken care of, sir," the cashier preemptively assured me however. I wondered if she was an Outside Berker, too, and knew who I was.

On the counter I spied a local calendar. "Add this to the tab, please," I added, picking one up.

"Do we need one of those?" Roana sighed next to me. "We don't keep track of dates, and we don't need reminders or temptations of the outside."

I looked at her for a moment as I realized I already had something far more rare and beautiful . . . my mate and a life with dragons that even I would have given anything for on the outside.

I put the calendar back. The cashier just smiled.

"Lance," Roana then more quietly nudged me, "why don't you give your son one of these as well . . . so he will know who you are, when it's time."

I gently took the thin, stuffed human figure from her, marvelling at it for a moment.

"It's a Viking . . . Hiccup, actually," she softly added, "but it could so easily be you."

I couldn't help chuckling with amazement as the small figure had almost the exact same green tunic and pants on that I was wearing underneath my blue windbreaker. I was only lacking the brown vest.

"Here," I quietly said, passing it to my son as well, "here's a figure of daddy, to keep your Night Fury company. Your Night Fury's name," I paused, looking at it and feeling moved, "is Substance. And this guy," I said continued, touching the small, human figure again as my son now held it along with his Night Fury, " . . . this guy, is Lance."

"Come," Roana said, drawing close beside me and giving me a much-needed kiss, "let's go back to our dining room, and get some more pictures taken, along with enjoying dessert."

The ice had really broken now. Even the game playing that had been going on over dinner just stopped. We were all able to laugh and smile as we posed for pictures back in our private dining room. Taking my parka off once more, I posed with my son in my arms, and our stuffed figures . . . even clowning for a close-up of me and the small stuffed figure that was both my ancestor, and myself.

"I'm gonna have to get one of these myself," I sighed, looking at it after the photo was taken.

"Already taken care of, Chief," Roana smiled as she held up another figure of me . . . along with a figure of her ancestor that looked just like her. "I modelled for this one, actually, during one envoy trip to the outside a few years ago," she smiled, looking at it. "After all, it was for a good cause. The sales of these help pay for bandages and medical supplies."

"Thank you," I quietly said to her. "Thank you so much."

Melanie and Douglas were watching us now, holding my son in their arms between them as he admired his new toys. I looked at Melanie briefly. She just nodded back to me.

I had a feeling that things wouldn't be so difficult now, even between her and I.

— — — — —

After dessert and a final round of coffee, it was time for all of us to go. An entourage of six plainclothes Outside Guardians was now quietly in evidence scattered around Melanie, Douglas, Ronald with his new Night Fury and 'Daddy' toys, and Roana and myself with ours as well, as we all made our way out. On the way though, my mate stopped back in the gift shop to pick up a stuffed 'Rökkr' to go along with her figure.

"Here," she said as she came back out of the shop to rejoin us at the restaurant's still crowded front doors. "Happy . . . whatever," she added as handed me the scenic calendar. "It'll remind us to come back, at least next year."

"I love you," I gently said to her.

"Later," she whispered back, deflecting me somewhat this time. "We should be going. But I love you, too . . . seriously so."

We now all stepped outside the front doors of the Kafé Berk in the cooling air as the darkness of fall now descended around us. Two black BMW limousines were now at the curb for all of us, parked one in front of the other.

"I must admit," Melanie said in parting, "you certainly know how to live now. We rarely had this kind of service when we were married, and this is certainly better than how we came here this afternoon."

"We don't exactly have all this where I live now," I hedged.

"But you will take care of returning our rental car, right?" she then asked me.

"Already handled, madam, as is your luggage and room check out, including the bills," one of our guardians preemptively assured her as he held the door of her sedan for her. "I just need the keys," he added.

"Douglas, keys please," Melanie almost demanded, holding her hand into the car as the requested keys were soon passed to her.

Remembering that kind of treatment so very well, I was truly glad I wasn't married to her anymore.

"Take care, Melanie," I now said more gently anyway, as the door of my own car was held for me. "And take care of our son, please."

"I will, Lance," she assured, now softening as well. "And he will know he's your son, too. Heck, he's already a south-paw like you are, and will probably be an irreligious liberal as well."

"I have found more faith than you could know where I am now," I assured.

"Watch over us," she invited to my surprise, "and come or call for him when it's time. I want him in my world while he's a child, but I won't deny him yours. More might be possible, too. Just let me discover how good he is with keeping secrets, okay?"

I tried to conceal my almost stunned shock now. I just glanced skyward in gratitude. God, Spirit, or dragons . . . something was at work here.

But then something struck me. "Melanie," I said as she was turning with little Ronald to get into their limousine, " . . . wait."

I then walked toward the back trunk of her limo. "Guardian, do you have any paper and a pen I could borrow for a moment?"

"Of course, sir," he replied as he produced both a pad and pen from his jacket.

I proceeded to write out first a list of molecular compounds on one sheet, and a formula diagram on a second—all from memory. I then paused, double-checking both sheets before I labeled them, tore them off, and handed them to Melanie as I handed the pad and pen back to the Guardian.

"This is the formula for a new active ingredient in topical rejuvenating skin cream," I quietly said almost in a whisper to her. "Its results beat anything else I looked at while I was studying workarounds for Lazarus before I hit on the you-know-what. I couldn't believe that the industry had missed it. You can complete the patent for that with this information, and take it to market . . . with my blessing."

Melanie actually hugged me, while still balancing our son with one arm—my third truly meaningful gift of that day. I felt forgiven, healed, even whole again in a way I had not since the divorce.

"Just form a company around it and license its use though. Don't sell it," I then managed to advise, still not believing Melanie and I were embracing.

"Ohh, I am all over that," my redheaded ex-wife assured as she looked at me again as she shifted Ronald in her arms. "But you know the rest, don't you . . . the you-know-what sequences?"

"It would take me a moment to remember it all on paper, as I did here," I quietly acknowledged, " . . . but yes."

"I will keep your secret safe, Lance . . . for him," Melanie replied as we looked at our son. "I don't want him living in a burned world either."

I was even feeling deep gratitude towards my ex-wife now.

I then turned, seeing Roana standing at the back door of our waiting limousine. It was my turn now to smile and invite her forward with a gesture of my head. She had a subtle but deep smile on her face as she came up beside me and I put an arm around her.

"Thank you, Melanie," I then said with real gratitude. "I love our son . . . and even you, enough to help you both with what I have just given you." I couldn't believe I had said that, but I was going with it now, all the way.

"I know," she replied as Douglas reemerged from their limo to stand supportively next to his wife. I had to give him credit for that now. "I'm just not quite on your wavelength. But Roana is," my ex-wife continued with amazing honesty as she gave a nod to my mate. "You can thank her and her hospitality for my improved attitude here. You just tend to set me off somehow. Take care though, sweetheart . . . always."

"You, too," I nodded as our two couples parted, each stepping into our limousines as Guardians shut both our doors for us. Their limo then sped off ahead of ours, with an Outside Berker police escort no less.

"It's to distract attention from us," Roana noted as I seated myself next to her. "Make them look more important. It will puff up their egos as well."

I glanced at her.

"I know," she sighed. "They're not so bad."

"But they're not us," I praised as Roana and I settled close together on our limo's nice leather back seat. "I'm sorry about this evening," I added as Oleg now drove our car off as well with the less noticeable BMW sedans escorting us front and back.

"I'm not," my mate answered, snuggling up close beside me and taking my right hand in both of hers across my lap. "Spirit itself orchestrated this. Our Network probably would have found out about your son, eventually."

"I amazed she even came to Norway," I sighed. "This isn't her kind of country in any way, shape or form . . . politically, or climate-wise."

"She was on a mission," Roana casually replied, "to go through the remains of the cabin back at my uncle's inn with a fine tooth comb, along with a court order. She even gave my uncle the third degree about anything you might have left behind, even with him in his office or safe, let alone in the car you had rented."

"She really wanted the information for those patents," I sighed.

"Yep," my mate agreed. She then looked at me. "You gave her one anyway, without condition, right?"

I simply nodded.

"I'm proud of you," Roana praised. "That's something a real Berker would do, letting treasure go like that."

"I don't quite know why I did it, really," I sighed.

"Yeah, you do," she gently assured. "You did it so that your son would have an open path to us here, maybe even in childhood."

"We will implement a careful Outside Berker protocol with your son," Oleg assured in front of us as he drove. "I think your former wife will agree to talk with us now. We might even offer her a job with Gerhard Technologies. They have contracts with the American Pentagon. She and her husband could even become Outside Berkers."

"Perish the thought," I smiled.

"They know about us now anyway," Oleg noted, "so we might as well have them in our fold rather than out of it. But your son will know where he comes from," he then assured, "and who he is."

I now sat back in my seat, trying to absorb all that had happened today.

"You okay?" Roana wondered beside me.

"This day was not what I expected or planned it to be," I responded.

"I know," she empathised. "But I am grateful for it. I even think we did good together . . . really good."

"Melanie," I sighed, "she's a piece of work though, isn't she?"

"You've earned a gold star in my book for even having been married to her," Roana smiled. "My uncle told me about her, during a recent phone call after she had finally left the inn. Even from his descriptions, she sounded like she could be a handful, even nightmarish. With her different last name and her husband and son with her, he thought she was a sister of yours. But I replied that from the sounds of it, she couldn't possibly be from the same family as you."

"Our network was just starting their checks of her," Oleg added. "We hadn't bothered to put a tail on her yet, figuring she would never find you on her own."

"Whoops," I said with a little guilt.

"Yeah, whoops," Roana agreed with a sigh. "I just didn't feel you wanted to be bothered with such news of your ex-wife's poking around though. I didn't think she would make it up here, but this kafé is advertised down at the inn, and she probably felt she should check out every possibility, as she probably knew about your Viking hobby near the end. You just picked the wrong, or maybe the right, day to surprise me."

I just looked at her now.

"But," she added, "now you know my past, and I have definitely experienced yours."

"Let's go home," I sighed.

"Home please, Oleg," she said.

"Yes, m'am," our driver replied with a smile.

"Had enough of the Outside?" Roana then asked me as we brought each other close, even draping her left leg across me.

"After this, I think for quite some time," I replied.

"Good," she concluded as our car soon turned off the main road and passed the first checkpoint, taking us back inside our isolated world once more.

"Lance?" she then quietly asked me as we sat with our souvenirs and little treasures of the day off to one side of us.

"Yeah?" I replied.

She then brought her mouth right against my ear, giving it a gentle blow and kiss that sent wonderful shivers all through me. "I want to make you a father . . . between us," she then whispered. "Wanna work on it together some more tonight?"

I just answered her with a kiss . . . a very grateful kiss. I had set out to be giving Roana everything today, but this, it was the final and best gift—one that we would share, together.


	32. Chapter 32

_Author's Note_

_My apologies for the two months' absence here. It started with a week of battling snow, ice and an attendant power loss. Then my dog suffering (but surviving) a significant canine stroke added to it. Plus I have been writing both a companion novelization of my now completed screenplay, as well as a new original novel intended for self-publication in some form. And darn if a storyline didn't also finally work itself out in my head for a sequel to my first screenplay—to the tune of twenty pages so far. As you can imagine, juggling four stories now, each with its own set of characters and plot, spread among a couple genres, can be both challenging and time-consuming._

_Also, taking on a book-length story like 'Legacy of Myth' here is something of a responsibility. I've been making time to re-read some earlier chapters lately, and I noticed how little errors and other problems were creeping in . . . stuff that needed fixing, even re-thinking a bit for this and subsequent chapters. Not every writer might do this, but I care enough about you reading this, and even about this story, to want to make the effort to both get the details right and keep things fresh and engaging, at least as best I can._

_Another reason though is the idea for this chapter, which I have to credit to katielp2693 and a wish she made in her review of the previous chapter. Something, maybe even the whispers of dragons, just told me to slow down and grant a wish, which these same whispers tell me, is really part of this story anyway._

_So enjoy this longer than usual chapter, perhaps to make up for the long absence . . . and no, this is not the end yet._

— _Norwesterner_

* * *

><p>The phone rang.<p>

Nope, I wasn't dreaming. It was ringing. They all were, both on the wall of our boathouse space and throughout the station.

When I was living on the outside, I was periodically woken out of a sound sleep by my bedside phone ringing with some summons from an official, a problem at the lab, or something that someone else thought required my attention . . . which it usually didn't. I never knew when these calls would come, so I came to have periodic nightmares about phones ringing. It was one of the additional but lesser reasons that caused me to quit my NASA job and go on sabbatical, starting at a nicely remote Norwegian inn where I wouldn't be bothered by phones and could hopefully get over those nightmares.

But here I was, in our bedding at the lifeboat station, and the ringing phone wasn't within reach. Fortunately I didn't have to race against a phone answering machine—this was rural Norway. After three rings however, Roana began stirring beside me.

"No, I'll get it," I assured, finding my heart racing again, just like it used to when phone calls woke me on the outside. This was now another reason I wanted to get back to life on the island full-time . . . no phones.

I scrambled out of our bedding in the morning daylight now, automatically donning an indoor tunic. It turned out to be Roana's though, as it was a little tight for me. Both being the same colour, they were easy to get mixed up. But as no one besides Roana and our dragon family were around; goofy-looking as I might have been in what was almost a tight, tan dress on me that covered my rear, I just kept going, dashing for the phone.

Stumbling to where the phone was mounted on a wall of the boathouse space, even slapping a hand against the wall to catch myself as I picked up the receiver . . . "Hello?" I finally said. Fortunately the Norse or Bokmål 'hallo' was not all that much different from English, although it's essentially pronounced 'haddo'. I just hoped whoever heard it wasn't going to speak Bokmål or Nynorsk to me though, as I just wasn't ready to think yet.

"Chief Ýsa?" the reply came back.

I had never heard myself addressed that way before, but I sleepily replied, "Yes?"

"This is Erika Torgesen, a personal assistant to Baroness Gerhard," the female voice continued. "I'm just calling at her request to let you know that the Baroness and several visitors are en route to you at your lifeboat station now by helicopter."

"How soon are they arriving?" I asked, now alert if not completely awake.

"Approximately thirty minutes," the assistant replied.

"Roana . . . Baroness, helicopter, thirty minutes," I now said aside to her as I briefly covered the phone. "Thank you," I then replied into the phone as Roana began rising from our bedding. "Perhaps just a bit more warning next time, but we do appreciate you calling. That's something the palace in Oslo didn't do before the king arrived a while back."

"That was a mix-up they've apologised to us for," the assistant replied. "They got clearance from the FSA and the Chief of Defence, but neither of them checked with us. If the royal helicopter hadn't done a routine radio check with the Guardian unit protecting you at the station, they might have been shot down."

"Nice to know," I sighed, realizing that my mere presence came close to precipitating a monarch's demise. "I'd better get going though," I concluded. "Thanks again."

"You're welcome," the assistant replied. "Goodbye."

"Bye," I echoed, hanging up the phone.

"Shower, my sir," Roana counselled, now up and hustling me off down the corridor from the boathouse space, not even bothering to dress herself. I suppose my wearing her indoor tunic might have had something to do with that. "Morning tea if we're fast and have time afterwards," she added.

"Screw up a date yesterday and no chance to leisurely get it right this morning," I sighed, just allowing her to basically push me along to the bathroom.

"Lance, you did wonderfully yesterday, and especially last night," Roana now gently praised, rubbing my shoulders as she pushed me.

"Sorry," I apologised, now stopping both of us in the hallway short of the bathroom and turning to face her, "must be my old self talking there. At least I'm wearing your tunic."

Roana just took me into a deep, reassuring embrace. I didn't quite know why, but I was now getting misty-eyed for some reason. I treasured the moment with her though.

"Come on," my mate encouraged, " . . . shower. I'll keep the magic going here, promise."

I could only hug her tightly in gratitude again, before willing myself to once more turn around, and inviting, "Push me."

— — — — —

Soon, the water was running and I was being told to brace myself facing the wall while I was then vigourously scrubbed from behind with a soapy washcloth while hot water splashed down between both of us in the shower.

"Roana . . . thank you," I sighed as more of me began waking up now. "I never had this on the outside."

"With what you were married to out there, I don't doubt it," my mate replied, as she continued scrubbing my back refreshingly hard. "Turn," she then said.

I turned around as Roana asked, while she just started scrubbing my front. Finally though she paused and looked into my eyes as I kept my gaze on her.

"What is it?" she now asked. "You seem troubled this morning."

"Maybe an old wound I've been saving for when it could be healed," I said. "Encountering exes can stir things up like that. You face Ran practically every day. I don't know whether that makes dealing with your past easier or not. With me . . . I'm just finding things stirred up inside right now. Old wounds suddenly going, 'Hey, I'm still here.' One thing's for sure though—I wish I had you earlier in life."

"Lance," Roana said drawing close, "you have me now. That's what counts, because when you think about it, now is really all we ever have."

I drew her into a kiss now as I held her even tighter, my face trying to gratefully smile while it also was busy physically expressing my gratitude to her face.

"Don't get me started here," she breathed as my face now migrated to her neck, "otherwise we will never get out of this shower."

"There are times when I wouldn't care," I said as I rocked her a little while holding her tightly in my arms, with even my head and shoulder embracing her head as well. "But your sense of responsibility has gotten inside me, too . . . along with the rest of you. Give me that washcloth. I can multi-task a little—just not quite as good as you, but let me try here."

"Lance, thank you . . . for telling me what's going on inside," my mate said as her right hand surrendered the blue washcloth to my left hand. "You don't know how much I appreciate that. Ran . . . and a guy I explored with in college . . . they never let me in. You do. That makes me feel so wonderfully trusted, even loved."

"You have a right to know," I said looking at her as I reached for the soap, which was fortunately on its little shelf at one side of the shower, "especially when it's not you causing what I feel. But because you are helping me feel better right now; no matter what, we are making this shower count."

"Lead the way," she breathlessly agreed as we both allowed ourselves to express our deepening yet wholly fresh appreciation for each other.

Saying thank you silently together as we then did became a nice counterpoint to the sudden phone awakening this morning, along with whatever nightmares of my past that may have been haunting me during the night. And I did actually manage to scrub her as we shared our mutual appreciation of one another. I even shampooed and rinsed Roana's long, silky blonde hair for her, throwing in a vigourous scalp massage that she thoroughly enjoyed.

Never once stopping our pleasurable, soapy work on each other, Roana soon finished washing me as well, even getting me to kneel in front of her as she washed my hair. After a final rinse, we fell out of the tub together as I reached for the towel, laughing as we hit the bathmat on the floor. I was glad to be underneath her to cushion our fall . . . well hers anyway. Let's just say Roana then proceeded to amply, and intimately, reward my gallantry.

I found myself now able however to easily forget that I had previously been married to anyone but her.

— — — — —

"I owe you one tonight," my mate said with a sigh of deep satisfaction moments later as we stepped outside just in time, now fully dressed in our best Berker clothing and cloaks, ready to greet the sleek, dark blue helicopter as it approached.

"Roana," I sighed as well, putting my arm around her from the side, "you don't owe me a thing."

"Lance . . . thank you," my mate said into my ear with a kiss as the helicopter landed in front of us.

I could only look at her briefly, and steal a quick kiss myself. Such simple words and expressions of the most basic human feelings like gratitude . . . I could only ask myself why I had not discovered and experienced this before in life. But the answer was right there next to me, even before I could finish asking the question in my mind. I hadn't had Roana with me before. She was making all the difference. Well, her _and_ the dragons.

I realized that duty called though as I turned with my mate to face the helicopter that was now settled on our station's helipad. Its turbines and blades wound down as its front and side doors began opening. Of course, security people in dark suits got out first—this time women interestingly as well as men. I just chalked it up to the Baroness and her priorities and preferences. All of these several security people had buds in their ears, and presumably guns tucked under their blazers. I sighed as I realized that no matter where I had gone in life during recent years I had been surrounded by guardians of one sort or another, and their guns. I found myself preferring the protection of dragons though, and their more natural armaments.

"What is it?" Roana asked me as she found me looking down, smiling.

"Ask me later," I suggested, before stopping myself. "Let's just say though that I'm finding I don't like the outside world anymore than you do now."

Roana just turned towards me and took me into a full-on kiss. _Hell with it,_ I thought as I just kissed her back hard now, too. We were Viking, for Pete's sake!

"Chief . . . Roana . . ." we then heard said with some surprise and hesitation near us. The kiss my mate and I had been sharing had to go for now. I gave Roana an appreciative, even connecting squeeze on the side of her tunicked waist with one hand though as we broke it off and turned again to face our guest and her entourage. Once again I found myself loving Roana with the ferocity of a dragon—and nothing, _not a thing_, was going to stop me from sharing that with her and making what was now a working day for us wonderful anyway.

That is until we both saw what we then did.

The Baroness was a slender, middle-aged, somewhat silver-haired lady dressed in a fine, dark blue business suit and skirt with a white blouse—clothes that almost matched the helicopter in a way actually. Both Roana and I were expecting her. It was who was getting out of the helicopter behind her that suddenly seemed to change the morning however, dramatically so.

"Chief, Roana," the Baroness repeated in more formal greeting, using the most refined Continental European accent of English I had ever heard. She seemed to naturally command attention and respect, almost more than the Norwegian king did.

"Baroness Gerhard," I now nervously replied, not knowing whether to extend a hand or bow. Through my hand and arm still around Roana, I now felt my mate freeze however as she saw the guests the Baroness had brought with her getting out of the helicopter. "It's a pleasure . . . to at last meet you," I said haltingly, trying to both address her and take in the sight of these guests.

"My apologies," the Baroness replied to my surprise, "you and I should have met before now. But there was a lot for all of us to deal with amid the aftermath of the battle."

"Of course," I managed to reply diplomatically. "But . . . I see you have guests," I added, now stating the blatantly obvious.

"Yes," the Baroness replied, turning back towards them as well. "Douglas, Melanie, do join us. It was fortuitous you encountered them yesterday, Chief, for a number of reasons."

I glanced at Roana. Her gaze just remained frozen on a past we both thought we had bid farewell to for the most part yesterday, and even had ushered out of Norway under armed guard no less. Yet here they were now, at the invitation of the crucial outside link and protector all of us on the island relied upon. My hand now gripped the side of Roana's waist hard through her tunic layers, rubbing it a little. I wanted to reassure her, and even draw reassurance from her somewhat.

"Do tell," I found myself saying in reply to the Baroness though, no longer afraid to openly wonder why she had seen fit to bring my past right through every layer of security that had been carefully arrayed around us, and near our dragons that no outsider was supposed to see.

"Chief Lance," the Baroness now carefully said aloud as my ex-wife and her husband drew close. "I realize I probably should have consulted with you before arriving here like this . . ."

_No kidding, your Ladyship!_ I now silently thought to myself, quickly beginning to lose a fair amount of respect for her.

"But when you and Roana encountered Melanie and Douglas yesterday," the Baroness continued, "a breach was opened. You chose not to drug them on the spot, which was wise, as the memory drugs likely could have significant effects on the unborn."

"Thank you, Lance," Melanie now added with seeming sincerity. "I, and my unborn child, owe you one for that."

Now I looked down feeling surprised again, and a little embarrassed at the unkind thoughts I had just been thinking.

"But because you did not allow them to be drugged," the Baroness resumed, "they have to become part of our Outside community and network now. As soon as I was apprised of this situation last night, I flew to meet with them at a Norwegian air base. I have to thank you, Lance—Melanie and Douglas, and what they do and who they know could be real assets to us."

Alright, now I was amazed. But Roana next to me was seemingly still frozen, emotionless. Without looking at my mate, I subtly moved my left hand down her left arm on her other side from me. I took her left hand in mine, gently rubbing and squeezing it. She didn't seem to respond though as the Baroness continued talking. Frankly I wasn't paying attention at the moment either. I had to glance at Roana again though. I just felt the irrepressible need to.

As I now looked, a single tear was falling out of the corner of Roana's right eye nearest me. I instinctively knew what it was—a tear of betrayal. My mate likely felt that she had enjoyed a special working relationship and status with the Baroness. But now, Roana was no doubt seeing my ex-wife move into the Baroness' good graces. If it was one thing my redheaded ex-wife was good at, she was unsurpassed in ingratiating herself with whomever she felt a need or even a desire to.

Roana though was just more important to me than anything, or anyone else.

"Excuse me, Baroness," I said, interrupting her, "but I've just remembered . . . we have mead tea boiling away in the back." Thank the gods I was able to think of something, any excuse. "Would you excuse Roana and I for a minute while we take it off the fire? I need both of us . . . heavy pot, you know."

Without waiting for baronial approval I then grabbed Roana by the hand and took her back inside the station. I turned left through the office, heading her and I right past the kitchen and lounge and off into the Coxswain's private quarters, quickly closing the door behind us.

I was right. Roana broke down sobbing the moment I shut the door.

"It's alright," I assured, taking her tightly into my arms. "It's alright now."

Roana angrily spoke a few words in Norse amid her sobs as I held her. Having not heard them before, I could only assume she was cursing bitterly in her native tongue.

"Hey, we're in this together, okay?" I tried to assure her.

"Lance . . . it's not just for me," Roana sniffed, trying to regain control of herself as she buried her face against my shoulder.

"What do you mean?" I now wondered as I gently lifted her face towards mine.

"I-I'm feeling a little like Asger, okay?" she confessed. "And a little scared."

"Roana," I replied with concrete assurance, "she cannot possibly replace you in my heart, in our family, or on our island."

"But what about any child I have with you?" she now posed, her tears still flowing.

"What?" I openly wondered.

"It didn't hit me until now," she went on, "but with Melanie out there making nice with the Baroness, and with Melanie's 'me and mine first' attitudes . . . she could put Ronald in competition with, or even ahead of, any son or daughter you and I might have."

"For what?" I asked. "Only villagers decide who becomes chief on the island, and a very large Outside Berker community watches over the barony. Besides, none of my offspring could become baron or baroness—the family lines haven't crossed . . . have they?"

"No," she sniffed, "but I fear Melanie now. I didn't think she would ever get close to the Baroness. But now that she and her attitudes seem to be doing just that . . . gods help us. I was diplomatic yesterday because I felt in control. I no longer do, Lance. From all you've told me about her, and especially seeing her out there now, she can be a 'charmer' as you Americans say—a dangerous one."

"Hey, I'm Canadian, remember? A Berker now, actually," I tried to lightly correct with an encouraging smile.

"Mates, wives . . . we just get jealous, and sometimes scared," Roana said as she looked at me.

"For good reason," I then gently assured. "I trust you, Roana . . . and I love you."

She just surged against me, gripping me in a hard embrace.

The room's door was now pushed open to our surprise, splintering the strike plate the door latch was extended into right off its wooden doorframe.

"Sorry," we heard a deep dragon voice apologise.

"Substance, what are you doing here?" I said with some amazement that she had been able to find her way to us on her own.

"Sensed something wrong," she said in her usual simple but straightforward way. "Am Guardian, and dragon. I feel things, especially now."

"Substance," I sighed, bringing Roana across the room with me, "the Baroness . . . she's brought my ex-wife and her husband with her. Roana senses my ex-wife is up to no good, and well, Melanie is very good at getting whatever she wants. Roana is fearful now . . . and I must say, I don't entirely disagree with her."

"Lance," my mate interjected beside me, "I love you, and I am so grateful to you right now."

"I understand you on this," I gently replied to her. "Just thank my studies of old Viking culture, including their reverence for clan and blood lines, as well as feuds and all the rest. Although that's mostly muted and modernized among Berkers now, both Dragon and Outside, I can appreciate how it may not have entirely disappeared here."

"Family you both create," Substance now assured, as an amazing combination of what I can only describe as counsellor and even priestess to Roana and I, "will be protected, even favoured among tribe. You both part of us. Mel-lan-nie is not," she finished, stumbling on my ex-wife's name a little.

"Substance, thank you," I said with deep gratitude and relief towards her.

"But," my dragon continued, "seed, and splinter, must be embraced, so they do not become threat on outside. That is why they here . . . to meet us, and me. What is broken off must be made part of whole, for whole to survive."

"Substance," I admired, moving to embrace my dragon while holding on tightly to my mate with one arm, "you're incredible."

"Thannk you, Lannce," she said, a tear forming in her lifeless eyes now. "I finally have job to do. I can be me again."

Even my mate kissed my dragon in appreciation. Amid all that we were being hit with this morning, Roana and I had forgotten the one element that made us strong . . . our dragons. It just struck me now—that's why the Baroness had even brought Melanie and Douglas here. She wasn't simply being won over by Melanie; she was bringing Melanie to encounter, even be conquered by, the true wisdom and even magic our dragons possessed.

"Guide me to meet them," Substance now encouraged, backing out of the doorway, but bumping against the opposite wall, unfortunately putting a hole in the painted sheetrock with the base of her tail and one hind leg. "Do not belong in station," she sighed almost apologetically.

"I know, Substance," I smiled, laying a hand warmly on her head. "Just move forward back through the dooway a few steps, then back up to your left, and we can walk down the hall together."

"Lannce, I have so wanted things to do," my dragon said as we turned her around in the doorway.

"This is your show now, Substance," I warmly assured her.

"Show?" she queried.

"Sorry, your chance," I clarified. "'Show' is sometimes North American slang for your chance to do something—demonstrate your talents and abilities in full."

"You Dragon Chief now," Substance reminded me as we walked.

"Turn right ninety-degrees; half-body," I interjected as we walked, figuring my dragon might not know what degrees were.

"Rely on your dragons," she finished, smoothly executing the turn from the hall through the station's front office now without hitting any of the desks. "Even me."

"Especially you, Substance," I assured.

"You learning," she warmly chided me with a smile on both her face and in her voice.

"Ýsa power!" Roana quietly chimed in as well now as we reached the door to the outside.

"Aren't you Johannsen, too?" I quipped as I kept an arm around Roana while we both preceded Substance out the station's front door.

"Yeah, but through mating, I'm an Ýsa now as well," she said. "And that makes me very happy, especially being with you. You just turn my days around, Lance—you really do."

"I'd say Substance deserves credit for this one," I smiled, glancing back at my dragon, as I also noticed Rökkr and Spring were now following us out the door as well. It was the whole Ýsa family now meeting my past, and it felt good. I smiled as our dragons took up their protective positions on either side of Roana and I once we all stepped outside. Substance was now on my right, Rökkr was on Roana's left, and Spring stepped up beside Substance as well.

"My apologies, Baroness," I now remembered to say as we approached them out near the helipad, still waiting for our return, "but the rest of us wanted to come, too."

"I had asked you to bring them out anyway, if you remember," the Baroness replied.

I'll admit I had missed that part.

"Melanie, Douglas," I said however, taking a deep but confident, even proud, breath as we stopped in front of them, "this is my family now. Right with me here is my dragon companion, Substance. She is our village's Guardian of Memories—a combined historian, folklorist, even priestess, you might say."

If I could have taken a photo of my ex-wife's and her husband's open-mouthed looks of shock at that moment, I would have. I could barely repress a growing smile on my face as it was though.

"An honour to meet you," my dragon complimented in her deep voice, further stupefying my ex and her husband.

"Th-Th-They . . . speak?" Melanie stammered, unable to take her eyes off Substance.

"In their own dragon dialects, as I told you yesterday at the restaurant," I casually replied. "But Substance has gone further, being the first dragon that I know of to attempt to speak a human language."

"English easier than Norse to speak," my dragon added. "But understand both."

"Substance is an honoured warrior among us as well though," I noted, laying my free right hand on her black head. "She led us into battle against the Soviet commandos, willingly taking bullets for me with her face as she and I flew in together . . . which has left her permanently blind now."

"Y-You actually rode her? Into battle?" my ex-wife now seemed to say with awe, seeing Substance's lifeless eyes and the bullet-scarred leather strap of office my dragon was wearing around her neck as well.

Rökkr now stepped forward next to Roana, looking directly at Melanie. He was loosely wearing his saddle on his shoulders, even though neither its girth nor straps were done up. Somehow, he had anticipated the need for a little 'show and tell' here.

"Yes," I simply confirmed, glancing at him as well, "I did."

"Lannce save me, too," Substance interjected next to me. "He shoot five Soviets with gun, allow me to fly off with bomb, save village. Tribe make him chief for that."

That seemed to move Melanie. I had always been a lab-bound peacenik in her eyes before. Now I was a warrior, even a leader of warriors, tested and proven in battle. My dragon had said so, as had her lifeless eyes and the scarred strap around her neck.

"Lance, I . . ." Melanie said in awe to me.

I strained mightily within myself to avoid sarcastically saying, _'Misjudged me?'_ even though I couldn't help thinking it. But Substance seemed to know, as she gave me a blind but deliberate nudge against my waist while my hand remained on her. "I am a somewhat different person than you knew," I said instead. "Roana, Substance, and everyone else in the village . . . they changed me."

"Not that simple, Lannce," Substance replied. "You did it, too."

"Thank you, Substance," I smiled as I rubbed her head a little more. "But over beside Roana is her dragon companion, Rökkr," I then continued. "He was the first dragon Roana introduced me to. He can understand English, but doesn't speak it. Yet he's managed to talk a fair amount of sense into me as well."

Rökkr glanced at me, seemingly grateful for the acknowledgement.

Spring now stepped forward a little beside us, gently saying, "Hell-llo," to our guests.

"And this is Spring," I proudly introduced. "He was orphaned in the battle, losing the aunt who was caring for him after his dragon parents had already died, his mother during childbirth as the egg she was laying shattered inside her, and his father flying into power transmission lines on the outside in a thunderstorm. Spring played soccer with me one day on the island, and later urged me to leave to escape capture by the Soviets. When I found him in returning to the village after the battle, I adopted him as my son."

"Y-Your . . . ?" Melanie stammered again, unable to get the words out, or even seemingly the idea of such a thing into her head.

"Yes, my son," I repeated as Spring now looked at our guests with a subtle but indescribable pride. "We all raise him as part of our family. We eat together—they just eat mostly raw fish, while we eat roasted fish and mutton. We also sleep together, and basically have no secrets from each other at all."

"May I?" Douglas said in wonder as he now stepped forward, reaching a hand out to touch Substance. She even seemed to sense this, taking a step forward herself and raising her large, black head towards his hand as Roana, Spring and I all stepped aside to allow her to move forward.

Outsider and dragon touched.

The Baroness just smiled as she and I shared a glance. "How about we share a meal in the village?" she then suggested.

"Unfortunately, Substance can't fly again yet," I gently noted.

"Go, Lannce," my dragon quickly said though. "They should see."

"But Substance," I hesitated, knowing she had wanted something of a role to perform here.

"Go," she insisted. "This necessary, for good of all. I do more exercise while you gone. Want to be home by winter."

"Alright," I relented, before turning to Melanie and Douglas. "Our dragons are keepers of insight and wisdom among us," I then explained. "When they insist on something, I've learned it's best not to disagree with them."

"This isn't just a zoology project is it?" Melanie remarked, still with a look of amazement on her face.

"No," I replied. "This is as much for us, even for humanity, as it is for the dragons."

"Mel-lan-nie," Substance now said in her deep, accented way, addressing my ex-wife directly, "we more than just animals."

"I-I . . ." my ex-wife stammered, clearly feeling caught but uncertain how to react.

"You not glad you not lone intelligence in universe?" Substance continued. "Or you prefer what outside teach . . . that you alone, and master of all?"

"Are you questioning my faith?" my ex-wife asked defensively now.

"Why you think I talk about faith?" my dragon asked. "Could be science, even politics."

"Those are very different things," Melanie replied.

"Are they?" Substance countered, seeming to be zeroing in on something. "You not sure of your faith? Of world? Why you unsure, you not trust?"

"What do you mean?" my ex responded. "Of course I'm sure of what I believe."

"If you have faith, trust, why you defensive?" my dragon posed. "If you trust faith and God, question should not bother you."

"I'm not defensive," Melanie replied, now clearly knocked off balance.

"Then I can't help you," Substance said.

"I do not need help," my ex responded.

"Then why you come? Why you brought to meet me?" my dragon pressed. "I am helper of people."

Melanie looked dumbfounded for an answer at first. "Well, it's not like I've had a lot of choice in all this since I encountered my supposedly dead ex-husband yesterday," she finally blurted out.

"Must have shocked you," Substance now seemed to empathize.

"I'll say it did," my ex agreed.

"Tell me about it," my dragon invited.

"What?" Melanie asked.

"Tell me about it," Substance casually repeated with her deep voice.

"But . . . But you're a dragon," my ex-wife said in amazement.

"I have mate," my dragon replied. "I lose past companion. I love and understand."

"You have? You do?" Melanie now asked with curiosity.

"But I blind now," Substance added.

"So I heard. I'm sorry," my ex-wife replied. "Wait—I'm talking with a dragon here," she then said to herself as much as anyone else as she looked away.

"Yes, but dragon is being also," Substance replied. "Fellow intelligence. Do I need to be human to talk with you?"

"Yes!" Melanie blurted out, burying her mouth against the knuckles of one hand as soon as she said it though as she looked down.

"Melanie . . ." I gently tried to say.

"Lannce," Substance then said in almost a corrective way, turning her large head briefly towards me before turning back to face my ex-wife. "Well, I talk to you anyway now," she then continued undaunted. "Mel-lan-nie, come," my dragon invited. "Guide me to grass off by ourselves. Talk. Rest of you, go see village. Come back for Mel-lan-nie in hour or two."

"Lance . . ." my ex-wife said with surprise, now looking at me with real uncertainty.

"This not involve Lannce," Substance said. "This for just you."

"You're being invited for a talk with someone who knows more about life than I could have ever imagined," I gently said to my ex-wife.

"I am not joining a cult here!" Melanie asserted with more than a little anger in her voice with both arms now folded tight across her chest.

"Come," Substance invited again, now slowly moving towards Melanie, as Melanie shrank back a little. "Tell me what 'cult' is."

"Lance," my ex said, "I am not going with this thing—"

"Dragon . . . or Guardian," Substance interjected.

"They do have feelings," I noted.

"Tell me what 'cult' is," my dragon repeated right in front of Melanie now, "here, or over on grass. It matter not to me."

"A cult is people brainwashed," my ex replied with some irritation where she was, seeming to refuse to go with Substance.

"Lannce, you brainwashed?" my dragon asked, turning her head towards me.

"Nope," I replied. "I just find myself understood, accepted, and encouraged to be who I want to be, even challenged to be better at times . . . a lot actually," I smiled.

"Cult is people who are told by leaders what to think, what is right, even who to be," my dragon continued, now answering her own question. "You agree, Mel-lan-nie?"

"Well . . . yes," my ex-wife reluctantly agreed.

"You been in cult then, on outside," Substance continued. "By people who tell, but don't listen. You attracted by how sure they are. You want to be that sure also. Their power, their confidence—you want that, always have."

"That's not true," Melanie now disagreed.

"They why your voice quiver?" my dragon perceptively asked.

Melanie now remained silent, her eyes remaining fixed on a dragon who seemed to be penetrating almost effortlessly right through to the core of her being.

"Douglas," Roana now invited, almost as an excuse and distraction to the rest of us, "would you like to fly to our island village the proper way? On a dragon?"

Douglas just looked dumbfounded, before giving way to an expression of silent but unbelievable delight.

"Lance," Roana then said turning to me without missing a beat, "why don't you accompany the Baroness to the island? You and the Baroness should get to know each other anyway."

"It is one reason why I'm here," the Baroness confirmed with a smile.

"What about me?" Melanie interjected. "You're not going to leave me with—"

"Scary dragon?" Substance interrupted again.

"I'm not scared of you," my ex-wife countered with a nervousness she wasn't able to hide.

"Good. I not scared of you," Substance parried. "Let's not be scared together, and talk."

"They always like this?" Melanie now asked me, seeming to still be pleading for an out.

"It's why we protect and fight alongside them, and why I would die for them, especially her," I assured, laying my hand on Substance's side one more time. "As I've said, their brains are larger than ours, significantly so, as is their brain to body mass ratio. Somehow they can sense more than we can. I've found I can't hide from them, even in what I think. Substance, even Rökkr—they have called me on lies, even ones I've been telling myself."

"Substance is our most revered dragon and tribal elder," even the Baroness added now. "Any of the thousands of us on the outside would be deeply honoured to have her seek us out for a conversation as she is now inviting you into. Even I have not had the priviledge she is offering and asking of you."

"Really?" Melanie now wondered with more than a little awe as she looked at Substance again.

"Really," Substance herself replied. "Some call me elder. Some call me priestess. But really, I listener, and carer. That what I do. That who I am. Right now, you need someone who care and listen to you; help you discover what is right for you, not just tell you. You need you back. You need you loved, and you need it much."

"But it's not possible," Melanie said almost to herself, shaking her head. "Elephants, whales . . . they're big-brained, but they don't talk."

"Don't they?" my dragon countered. "Mel-lan-nie," she then said more gently towards my ex-wife again, "I think, therefore I am."

"Descartes," my former wife smiled looking downwards. "You know Descartes?"

"To know him, is to love him," Substance replied.

"Samuel Rogers. You know English poets, too?" Melanie said, slowly looking towards my dragon again with some amazement.

"Not exact quote," Substance excused. "Use 'him' in place of 'her', 'is' in place of 'was'. Previous companion and rider read Book of World Quotations to me, translating English to Norse or Dragon. It how we spent winters. He said we needed to understand Outside. Be ready to meet them one day. Now is that day."

A love of learning. I could see for myself now that it was a central thing Substance shared with her previous rider—one thing that brought them close.

"I miss him," Substance then added, facing down blankly. "Love you, Lannce . . . but miss him."

I knelt down beside my dragon, gently embracing her large, black head. "I will read to you, Substance," I assured her. "Promise."

Substance closed her eyes, subtly nodding in tearful gratitude.

"Substance . . . you alright?" I heard Melanie slowly say beside us.

"Hurt," my dragon replied, still facing down. "Old hurt. Past rider fall and die during flight with me. Unable to save him, but held him on ground . . . as he died."

"I-I'm sorry," my ex-wife now said, kneeling down in front of Substance as she extended a hand to finally touch her head. "I'm sorry that happened to you," she reiterated.

"I feel," Substance sniffed. "I think. I love. We all do. Your kind, that thinking that we just animals, evil ones—it kill most of my kind, my people. My kind are people, too. Not human, but still people. Intelligent, feeling people."

That seemed to make Melanie think for a moment as she now looked down and away. "You know," she finally said looking at my dragon again, "I can't disagree with that now."

Suddenly, I now saw my ex-wife touched, even reached, in a way I had not seen in all the years I had known and been married to her. "You okay?" I even asked her.

"I-I don't know," Melanie replied. "But I think I'll stay with Substance here."

"With Substance being blind," I then excused, covering what I wanted to do, "I give her a hug and kiss goodbye when we part, even for a little while. I feel I owe her that—for saving my sight, while losing her own. She asks hard questions, but she gives . . . far more than she takes," I bent down, embracing my dragon's large head and kissing her on an ear, whispering, "Go to work, Substance. I am proud of you, so very proud. You don't really need to hear that from me, but I wanted to tell you anyway."

"Thannk you, Lannce," my dragon replied. I could see there was a tear in her lifeless eye, one of gratitude. "Mel-lan-nie," she then said, "guide me to good patch of grass, away from helicopter."

"Alright . . . Substance," my ex-wife said to my dragon, to my amazement. "But Lance," she then added, turning to me, "please take Ronald with you. I just don't want him on Doug's back, flying on Rocker over there."

"It's Rökkr," I gently corrected, "but you got it. I will keep our son safe."

Even Roana was smiling again next to me as Melanie then walked off guiding Substance to a far patch of grass near the shoreline and some trees.

"Imagine if we had our dragons on the outside," I quietly said to my mate.

"I do," Roana assured me, "every day. Peace and truth would be breaking out all over the place."

— — — — —

Soon I was flying in the most luxurious executive helicopter I had ever seen, sitting in a plush white leather seat next to the Baroness while toting Ronald on my lap as smartly-attired Outside Guardians sat in seats around us. They just looked out the windows, trying to give us some sense of privacy in their midst.

"Lance, I am sorry about this," the Baroness candidly apologised to me as we now took to the air.

"Baroness—" I began.

"Please," she interjected, "our ancestors were on a first name basis, even adoptive brothers of a sort. So call me Jarldis. You are really the only equal, the only peer I have aside from the Royal family in Oslo, now that my husband has died."

"I'm sorry, Bar—Jarldis," I corrected myself.

"That was two years ago," she sighed, glancing out the window next to her. "You know, I've only ever been able to understand a few grunts here and there of Dragon, but I am truly impressed with Substance now. She has come much farther than I have heard."

"Spring is following in her footsteps, even looking to surpass her," I noted with pride, "as he is beginning to speak in Norse as well as English. With villagers having understood and spoken Dragon fluently from birth for eons, the dragons never felt a need to speak anything other than their own dialects. My coming here, and finding Dragon utterly incomprehensible changed all that though. So dragons, at least my two so far, are discovering that they can in fact speak other languages if they try."

"I can't tell you what a blessing your coming is, Lance," she now said turning to me, " . . . for all of us, even on the outside."

"I personally think it's a mixed blessing, Jarldis," I replied. "Aside from what happened to Substance and to all our casualties and wounded, we now have outside military encamped with us. Even though the Norwegian MJK and our one American Navy SEAL are incredibly professional, culturally sensitive, and diplomatic; they will invariably bring some outside cultural contamination with them. And we are dependent on them. They make up a good portion, if not half, of our remaining Dragon Rider force now—the commandos _love_ riding dragons. Plus they're opening up communications like never before, and while we're right there with them in terms of alcohol consumption with mead, I'm afraid they'll introduce things like smoking, and who knows what other modern vices to our people. My cousin, Brigader Husa, assures me though that all MJK and FSK personnel being selected for tours of duty with us are under strict orders to behave themselves. I just hope they can keep our secret when they rotate back out though."

"We are doing the training there," she assured. "It's why we work only with special forces units and soldiers though. Keeping secrets for life is part of their jobs. Plus there are Outside Berkers in the current MJK unit with you anyway."

"Why haven't they told me? Introduced themselves to me?" I wondered.

"In part because the rest of their unit doesn't know," she answered. "It's our code—we only reveal ourselves when we have to. There are layers upon layers of secrecy. It has been ingrained in us over centuries. You only have to exist in one world, Lance—we have to exist in two. Villagers have stories about dragon and human needing to live together in harmony to survive. On the outside, our children are told stories that dragons need us to keep silent, or they die. We don't even need to invent all that much, as Old Norse sagas and numerous other stories on the outside are replete with dragons being slain left and right. All we have to do is get children to love and care about the dragons, see how misjudged the dragons might be in those stories, and the children begin instinctively protecting dragons with silence, almost from the cradle. Even I can't help but think of the dragons amid all I do."

"But I'm changing all that," I sighed, "the balance that has been maintained for a thousand years."

"The technology we're riding in, and that's above us, has already been changing that balance," the Baroness assured. "It has been for some time. But you and I may not have much time today, Lance, so is there anything you need, or need to tell me?"

"Our Guardian, Oleg, told me yesterday that you're staging a recruitment, for Outside Berkers to help repopulate our village," I responded. "Given our food supply situation, as well as damage to some of our housing, let's hold off introducing any new people until spring at this point. We're having to rely on, even perhaps beg from, the MJK for additional food stocks to last us the winter. We have so many injured dragons up in the caves who can't fish for themselves right now, as well as injured survivors in our village."

I now felt myself getting truly sad, thinking about all this. "It's my fault," I said quietly. "I drew this to us. I did. Roana, even Substance have told me otherwise, but . . ."

I now felt a hand take mine. "I feel the same responsibility, every day," the Baroness told me. "You don't know how hard it is holding the rest of the world at bay from your island. Having to fend off opening your quarantine zone to fishing, even from pressures for oil and mineral surveys, and having to scramble to place Outside Berkers here and there to dissuade Outsider interest or stem leaks."

She then took a long breath. "But having an Outsider like you as Chief of the tribe now," the Baroness then continued, "I finally have someone I can relate to, work with, even simply talk. I need that, Lance. I have needed you where you are now for some time. I haven't even been to the island before, as the old guard, mainly Arvekni and Roald, wouldn't permit helicopters to land there, and didn't invite me to come in by dragon. World War II and the great changes outside had so shaken them that they closed off the village. All we could do was protect their choice of isolation. It was Roana, and her insisting that the dragons were declining and that village humans needed better medical care, too, that finally opened a crack again in recent years, allowing both her and Ran to receive educations on the outside. Hjarta's past rider, Amund, had laid some groundwork years earlier, proving it was okay to at least import books from the Outside. He was an avid reader and learner, attempting to educate himself and his dragon further almost through a correspondence school of sorts with his relatives on the outside. I was told he managed to get himself and his dragon on messenger duty to the lifeboat station as often as possible. I even had the privilege of meeting them both a couple of times there."

"Substance hasn't told me much at all about him," I sighed.

"I understand she loved him very deeply from all I've heard," the Baroness replied. "I could even see it between them, the few times I met them. They were closer than most husbands and wives I've seen. That she mentioned him today surprised me."

"I hope I am enough for her," I said quietly as Ronald now bounced a rattle in my lap.

"You, Rökkr, and the family all of you are around her will be," Jarldis assured next to me. "Just cherish her . . . and help her learn and appreciate new things, even insights."

"She says she almost forgets being blind when she's learning something," I noted. "So you bet I will. Thank you for telling me about this though—about them."

"She deserves your understanding and support, as much as you deserve knowledge of her past," the Baroness assured. "But she's how we got to Roana and Ran, and recruited them."

"Substance?" I queried.

"Substance," she confirmed. "Only she was going by her title then, Guardian of Memories or just Guardian, after Amund had died and she had become an elder. Roana's stance and outside education, along with Ran, were the things Guardian really pushed for with Árvekni and Roald. It was a rare case of disharmony among the elders, but her logic carried the day. I even had Roana placed at an American university, as someone among the villagers needed to understand the outside, especially American ways. It was hard on her, being thrust into such a different environment as she was, not to mention the training we put her through, but she bore it all well . . . so well."

"That I get to be with her," I sighed in gratitude, "or with Substance . . ."

"We picked well in you," the Baroness praised.

"But I thought Roana's uncle was the matchmaker with us," I replied.

"He was," she confirmed. "He, or rather his genealogy buffs and students found you. He then of course alerted us, we checked you out and began watching you, and he did the final part in hosting and encouraging you. But even I felt for you with the reports I was reading."

"That detailed, eh?" I noted.

"They had to be," the Baroness replied. "We were allowing a legend back into our midst. Some of the villagers might have even hailed you as a messiah."

"Don't even say that to me," I said shaking my head.

"If you had been like your great-grandfather, we might have just shut things off right there," she continued. "But clearly, you're anything but. You're even good enough for Roana, who has become like a daughter to me as well."

"That means a lot to me," I said, looking at her. "And it means a lot to Roana as well. Make sure you talk with her today. She could use your reassurance, especially with your bringing my ex-wife and talking positively about Melanie this morning. That's why I ducked out with her . . . she was initially very troubled at seeing Melanie with you, and you seeming to talk so warmly of her."

"Roana is in good hands," the Baroness praised, "very good hands. And so is Substance."

"I try," I replied modestly.

Before we knew it, we were flying into the valley as the familiar island mountain ranges came into view on either side out the helicopter windows. Not only were Roana and Douglas flying beside us on Rökkr, along with Spring, but other Dragon Riders, some of them outside military, were escorting us on dragons down into the village as well. Somehow, it was good to see our force still doing their job.

"I knew about Roana," I wondered as the Baroness and I braced for landing, "but Ran is a trained Guardian, too?"

"He washed out in the latter stages of his training," she said. "Wrong psychological make-up; it was too much for him. Roana tried to make things work for him, encouraging him to stick with his training, even being willing to sacrifice herself in marriage to him. He was the closest in the village to being an equal for her, being a doctor as well as trained and familiar with the outside. But of course it didn't work . . . fortunately now."

— — — — —

We all set down in a field in the valley just outside the village. Our Outside Guardians got out of the helicopter first again, and then the Baroness and I finally emerged. As I hoisted Ronald onto my back in his carrier, I made a point of seeking out Roana though as she and Douglas dismounted from Rökkr, just taking my mate into my arms as I helped her out of the saddle.

"I've been told more about you now," I whispered as I kissed her ear, "and the Baroness thinks of you as a daughter. She will never think that of Melanie."

"Lance," my mate tearfully whispered back as she hugged me tightly despite my wearing Ronald's carrier.

"Talk with her, at some point while she's here," I quietly encouraged. "Time for us to go to work though," I then smiled. "We have guests."

Both of us turned to see not only Douglas, but even the Baroness awestruck at the sight of the village and the villagers and dragons who were going about their daily tasks. Helicopter landings had become fairly routine in the village now.

But sure enough, we at least had something of a welcoming committee.

"AAAAAAAHHH!" I heard Douglas yell while I was looking away for a moment.

I smiled, knowing what it was as I turned back and saw a mostly green small dragon now perched on his shoulder. "That's Vinkona, a Terror dragon," I calmly noted. "She's just welcoming you, and checking you out. She's quite friendly."

I noticed that a more orange Terror had settled on the Baroness. "And you've perhaps unfortunately drawn Afganga," I noted to her. "He'll take off soon enough if you don't feed him."

"Do you have anything to feed him with?" the Baroness smiled, apparently not fearing for her nice suit in the slightest.

"Ekki at vit höfum nokkurn fisk eta matarleifar fyrir Afganga?" I now called out fairly loudly.

A nearby woman villager carrying a basket of herring turned and came up to me.

"Vit venjulega ekki hvetja hann ekki, Höftingi," she nonetheless tried to dissuade me, shaking her head.

"Þat er fyrir gesti okkar. It's for our visitors," I replied in my customary bilingual way as I took a couple of the small fish out of her basket.

"Dragon!" my human son now exclaimed on my back.

"Very good, Ronald," I praised, glancing behind me.

"He's been saying it all night and morning, since we told him what his new favorite toy was," Douglas explained next to me.

"Allow him to feed Vinkona a fish," Roana suggested next to me. "She's much gentler than Afganga."

"Alright," I smiled, "Baroness, here's your fish for Afganga. Just watch your fingers I guess."

"Afganga, blítur!" Roana sternly warned in Norse as I passed one herring to the Baroness who seemed genuinely delighted at the opportunity.

"And Ronald," I continued, turning my head around, "here is a fish for Vinkona." Even though it was a stretch for me in twisting my arm halfway round, I now held the fish along with him as Douglas moved closer to us with Vinkona calmly perched on his shoulder. Very gently, almost daintily, Vinkona stretched her horned snout forward to accept the fish from our hands, even briefly locking eyes with my human son as she did, almost in seeming gratitude and connection.

I heard a camera go off next to us.

"Thank you. Þakka þér," I said to the female Outside Guardian dressed in a blazer whom I saw out of the corner of my eye with the camera now.

"You're welcome, Chief," she said in very good English. "I know our other guest will want this picture. Just ignore me though. I will be around, recording special moments for all of you."

"Come here," I invited the dark-haired young woman in a suit as I extended a hand. "What's your name?"

"Tanya, sir," she replied as she accepted my handshake.

"Oh," I remembered, "sorry about the fish slime."

"It's fine, sir," she assured.

"I just want to thank you for all you, and so many others are doing," I said. "I know it's your jobs, even a proud calling for you—but I just want to thank you anyway. I will be appreciating every photo you take here. I'm sorry, but I just don't speak Bokmål. I can thank you in Old Norse though."

"Thank you, sir," she replied, almost with a tear in her eye. "I deeply appreciate what you say. I am even prouder to protect our people now."

"Carry on . . . Guardian," I said with equal pride as she now moved off and poised her camera again.

I turned to see the Baroness smiling at me, still holding her fish. Amazingly Afganga just seemed to be patiently waiting for his prize, perched on her shoulder. But perhaps Roana's standing right in front of him and giving him a firm look might have had something to do with that. The Baroness then fed her fish to Afganga, who gently accepted it as well.

Seeing fish just being handed out to the smallest among them, a few larger Gronkles, Nadders and Zipplebacks began gathering around us.

"I think we'd better call a feast lunch here, before our guests wind up feeding every dragon on the island themselves," I quipped.

"Eftirmitdag hátít! Midday feast!" Roana now called loudly to the rest of the village. Horns and dragon roars quickly followed as villagers and our special forces commandos began swinging into action to set up tables on the commons as well as cooking fires and cauldrons for the afternoon feast she was now calling. A number of able-bodied dragons even took off on fish runs.

"I don't want Melanie to be missing this," I cautioned.

"She won't," my mate assured beside me as we both watched all the activity in front of us now. "It'll be an hour or two before everything is ready."

"I wish Substance didn't have to be missing this," I quietly added.

"I know," Roana agreed, taking my hand. "But there are no helicopters here large enough to bring her today."

"She wants to return on her own anyway," I sighed.

"We have until the snows start falling to get her here," my mate replied, "one way or another."

— — — — —

Before long, it was time to eat . . . and time to fetch our missing guest.

"I'll get her," Roana offered, turning to mount Rökkr. "He can't carry three of us, and I think she could use a dragon ride here."

"Go do it," I just sighed with a smile, "and tell Substance . . . just tell her how much I'm appreciating her today."

"I will," Roana promised as and Rökkr now took to the air along with Spring, while most everyone else in the village began gathering near the tables in anticipation of the coming feast now.

While they were gone, word of the feast and our guests spread up to the dragon caves. A good number of dragons were coming down the valley to join us. Many flew, but a number were walking—some with the help of other dragons who were watching over them.

"My God . . ." the Baroness quietly said as some wounded and handicapped dragons now passed her on the ground, including Nightmares and Nadders missing various limbs, even the one-headed Zippleback who now seemed much improved in spirits and was carrying a Gronckle this time on its broad, flat back who couldn't walk.

"Every dragon who is injured or handicapped has a companion who watches over and cares for it," I noted, "even if it's another injured dragon. It especially gives the handicapped among them a new purpose, and reason to live."

A pair of Nightmares now passed us. One was carrying its companion partly on its back amid its two rows of tall spines, as the second dragon now had only a truncated stump for its right leg but was seeming to walk alright on its left with help. Both Nightmares' pairs of wings were still in large slings wrapped tightly around their bodies—but that their wings were even there was a sign of hope.

"We've even had a number of wonderful matings among them, like those two Nightmares right there," I pointed out. "There are some who can't come down, but their companions will be making sure they don't miss out. I've hardly needed to do a thing, other than give them scrubbings they richly deserve. Roana and the medics and others assisting her have been the real heroes with them."

"Is there anything we can do for you, and them?" the Baroness asked, deeply moved at what she was seeing.

"Some things just can't be fixed," I replied as we watched and bore witness to the informal procession of wounded and disabled dragons in front of us. "But they are being made better."

Soon I spotted Rökkr and Spring returning in the distant skies over our valley. I must admit I didn't quite know what to expect here. But I was at least looking forward to seeing the results of Substance's work with my ex-wife.

"Excuse me," I said to the Baroness as I moved to where Rökkr was landing smoothly on the commons with Roana and Melanie in his saddle as Spring landed beside him. My ex-wife seemed happy enough, even somewhat excited after her first flight on a dragon.

"How are you, Melanie?" I simply asked as I helped her with a hand as she dismounted from Rökkr and stepped away while Roana went to work on removing Rökkr's saddle in preparation for the feast.

"Lance, I don't quite know where to begin," my ex-wife replied. "Frankly, part of me now even regrets divorcing you."

I have to admit I was utterly shocked with that, and really hoping that Roana wasn't hearing this as she untacked Rökkr nearby. Substance had evidently worked far more of a miracle with Melanie than I had expected.

"But if I hadn't," Melanie continued, "we wouldn't have discovered any of this, and you and I would probably still be divorced anyway. Substance though . . . she helped me see how much I am needed to support all this on the outside, and how screwed up I, and my priorities, were. She just blew my worldviews apart, showing me in example after example just where they would lead. But she really got to me, telling me more of how much she loved her past rider, Amund. She said more than anything, she wanted to be a human woman to him, or he a dragon. She felt they were two of the same . . . mated souls who were just in different bodies. The love she told me they shared—it just had me aching for her, Lance. She is a person," Melanie sniffed. "I can't help but see her as anything but now, and someone whose kind is utterly worth protecting. Lance, you are so lucky to be here."

I just remained stunned, at an utter loss for words, as Melanie then embraced me. I reluctantly extended my arms around her as well, only to glance to one side and see Roana now coming up next to us, having finished untacking Rökkr for his meal. I deliberately decided to keep my gaze on Roana though—if nothing else than to try and wordlessly assure her that she was my focus, and my life now. Roana decided to reach a hand possessively around the back of my head, separating it from Melanie's, as my mate drew me into an open and wantonly passionate kiss . . . one that involved deep breathing, tongues, even a gentle moan.

"Ohh, I'm sorry," Melanie apologised, finally getting the message and separating from me. "He's your husband now. Kind of forgot that for a moment here, I guess."

"It's alright," Roana replied as she nonetheless moved closer against me. She proceeded to place her right hand possessively over my heart and even lifted her right leg across the front of me, hooking it around my legs almost as if she was ready to drop me to the ground and take me right there as she kissed me once more with no small degree of over protectiveness, seeming to silently announce to the world that I was hers in no uncertain terms.

I just went along with it all as the rest of the village once again began cheering and roaring around us at the sight of another of our passionate affirmations.

"Now that we have that settled," Roana now replied with satisfaction as she eased up on her grip while never taking her eyes off me, "let's eat."

Roana was somewhat shorter than Melanie, but Melanie now looked at her with nothing but respect. I could only smile as I kept my own gaze on Roana.

"Þú ert minn," Roana said to me quietly but firmly in Norse.

"I am . . . Dragon Woman," I replied in English, as I drew my mate close again in front of me now.

"My fire to yours, always," she said in English as well while we kissed deeply one more time.

I knew Melanie could not help but overhear that. I then glanced towards my ex-wife as Roana and I ended our kiss. Melanie was just raising an impressed eyebrow as she smiled and nodded.

"We're Viking," I said, looking aside at Roana in my arms. "We don't mess around, and we live life here . . . _really_ live."

"So I can see," my ex-wife simply replied as Douglas stood next to her. "Makes me want to rediscover the Scot within me. I've heard they were a wild bunch, too."

"They intermixed with Vikings at times, why not?" I smiled.

"Let's eat," Roana repeated, gesturing to us with her free arm towards the feast tables amply laden with fish, mutton and cooked vegetables as a few pipes and drums now began sounding in the background. I turned to see an MJK commando sitting in with our little band, playing a pipe himself. I then spotted Rökkr and Spring breaking off from us to dig into a generous pile of fish with several other dragons of various breeds.

I now looked at my mate again as we followed behind our guests to the feast tables. "You okay?" I quietly asked.

"As I used to hear in the James Bond films I saw at college," Roana sighed, "let's just call me, 'Shaken, but not stirred.'"

I just turned to silently embrace her, tightly. Unfortunately, I was still carrying Ronald on my back, and I could hear him patting the side of Roana's face a couple times as I held her.

"Kid's still here," she noted.

"Sorry," I apologised. "Ronald, be nice to your . . ."

"Aunt?" Roana suggested.

"Hiccup's children had more than one mother," I replied.

"But he never had more than one wife," she responded.

"Complicated," I sighed.

"You could say that," my mate agreed. "In this case though, I prefer aunt."

"Just blame this on my great-grandfather, Asger," I suggested.

"I am both blaming, and thanking him every day," Roana said as we both now began plating some food for ourselves at the tables.

— — — — —

Soon, Roana and I were sitting along with our guests on the commons grass, with me having gallantly removed and provided my chief's cloak for the Baroness to seat her nicely attired self upon. I was still getting used to being the centre of village attention now, but today especially, the rest of the village seemed to gather beside and around us in a big circle. Rökkr and Spring were now sitting on either side of our guests, as well as Roana and I, surveying the crowd as we ate.

"Does he have to be sitting quite so close?" Melanie wondered as she tried to eat some mutton with Rökkr right beside her, seeming to not exactly be thrilled with having to use just her fingers.

"He and my son, Spring, consider themselves to be on duty now as Chief's dragons," I explained as I ate some cooked vegetables with my own fingers. "Being guardians is a very sacred thing among dragons. It's both ceremonial and a deadly serious reality to them."

It now began raining a little. Rökkr just proceeded to move even closer against Melanie as he extended his right wing over practically all six of us humans while Spring helped, extending his own left wing beside and over me as they now sheltered us from the rain.

"And as you can see," I added with a smile, "it can be useful, even pleasant, too."

Melanie looked up at Rökkr as he sheltered her and the rest of us. He just briefly returned her gaze with one eye before resuming his surveillance of the crowd around us once again. It was all Roana and I could do to avoid busting up in laughter as we just stuffed food into our mouths instead.

Then a human villager came and knelt beside Roana, quietly saying something in Norse into her ear that I didn't quite catch.

"There is something you all should stay for," my mate then said in a subdued tone to our guests. "It won't be entertainment, but it's something that will help you understand us, and see that we are indeed all one here."

I now didn't have to ask what it was.

— — — — —

After dinner, and a dessert of traditional Viking Kaka for us humans and stew for the dragons, the village once again gathered quietly around our ceremonial area at the base of the village and valley to honour another of us who had passed. This time it was a Nadder who had died of wounds she had suffered in battle. Shouldering Ronald and his carrier again, Douglas watched with Melanie at the front of the crowd while two Nadders and their riders now stood on either side of them. My ex and her husband couldn't help noticing that one of the dragons of their honour guard beside them was an amputee, missing a wing. But both Dragon and Rider had requested to return to at least ground duty, and this was now their first assignment together since the battle.

The Baroness, Roana and I stood with Rökkr and Spring either side of us, facing the crowd at an angle as the platform bearing the Nadder was wheeled in front of everyone.

"I had passed, even talked reassuringly to this dragon many times up in the dragon caves," I said, now addressing the crowd in English as Roana translated, "as well as giving her a number of pleasurable scrubbings. Even though I could see she was in pain much of the time from her wounds, we—all of us—made her last days here good."

I then nodded towards Rökkr, who moved to the centre in front of the Nadder. He then closed his eyes, raising his head to the sky and began a low and sustained hum, in prayerful song.

I kept an eye cocked on Melanie and Douglas as they just initially gazed in wonder around them, as the rest of us, both human and dragon, even the Baroness, raised our heads as we all joined in the humming. The ethereal resonance of every voice now washed across the foot of our valley, surrounding us with an indescribably harmony. This was who we of Berk were; and Melanie and Douglas were being invited, even called now, to join us.

The two of them glanced around and at each other for what seemed the longest time. Then finally, they closed their eyes as they raised their heads, adding their voices as well. Our harmony was now complete. I smiled, almost breaking my own humming though as I noticed that one female Outside Guardian with the camera now photographing Melanie and Douglas as they hummed beside their Dragon Guardians with the rest of us.

_Substance, you did so good here,_ I now thought silently almost with a tear in my eyes, as I wished my dragon was here now to experience, if not see, the fruits of her work this morning with Melanie. My mate opened her eyes and glanced at me as she continued humming.

"It's Substance," I quietly sighed to her. It was all I needed to say. Roana just moved to put her arm around me under my cloak as I brought her tightly against my side with an arm as well.

Rökkr then lowered his head and opened his eyes as he went silent, ending the dragon prayer. He then nodded towards the Baroness, who stepped forward beside him and began speaking in remarkably good Old Norse, as Roana also moved to translate beside her into English for both the Outside Military, as well as for Melanie and Douglas.

"'I bring you greetings, and condolences, from your Outside brothers and sisters,'" Roana translated as the Baroness spoke. "'Know that we stand firmly with you all—guarding, protecting and supporting you here, as we have done for almost a thousand years. We grieve with you at the losses you have suffered, and we will work even harder on the Outside to ensure that this tragic but valiant conflict, which has now claimed this dragon as well, will not happen to you—to any of us—again, ever. We Outside Berkers have long sung a song, an anthem, passed down from generation to generation, shared one house at a time. Each time we sing it, we sing it for you, here. I would be honoured to sing it for you, and for our fallen sister, this Nadder, now.'"

With a beautiful Mezzo or lower Soprano voice, the Baroness then sung the song of her part of our tribe. Their old tribal language had evolved into a somewhat different dialect of what could perhaps be described as a 'Middle' Norse, so I didn't recognize all the words. But the soothing melody of her voice almost achingly portrayed the pain of a people divided by necessity, but unwaveringly united in purpose.

"Fyrir því drekar . . . Fyrir því drekar," her song ended as the noblewoman bowed her head in reverence.

There was a deep, moving silence across the entire crowd for a moment, before some humans in the crowd began clapping, and dragons began roaring. This was indeed who we were.

I noted and nodded towards another Outside Guardian, a man this time, who was recording these events with a shoulder-mounted video camera. I was sure this would be shown house-to-house among Outside Berkers. Even Roana's uncle would likely see this.

For the moment though, we had a final duty to perform. As the Baroness stepped to the side again, Rökkr and the dragons who were family or otherwise close to the Nadder who had passed on now stepped forward to surround her body as they proceeded to breathe steady flames upon it, soon reducing both her and the platform she was on to fine ash on our hallowed ground. As a group, they then blew the first of her ashes into the air and over the cliff, before Roana, the Baroness, and I moved in to lead the rest of the village in scattering her ashes to the winds. I noted with satisfied pleasure that Douglas and Melanie were now right beside us, having evidently been ushered forward to join us by their human Dragon Rider guardians.

"It's okay," I proceeded to encourage and demonstrate to them, "Just dip your hands into the ash, and then toss it high into the air. But leave the ash that lingers on your hands there for a while, to better know the dragon you have honoured here."

Roana and the Baroness tossed their handfuls of the Nadder's ashes into the air before Melanie and Douglas nervously proceeded to do the same, then watching the ash seem to linger in front of them as it drifted amid the gentle breezes of that fall afternoon.

"It's incredible," Melanie sniffed with deep gratitude as she then turned towards me.

"It's why I'm here now," I gently replied.

The setting sun then reminded me that my day at least here on the island had to come to an end.

"While Roana, Rökkr, Spring, and I should be returning to Substance before dark now, you and Douglas would be welcome to spend the night in our house here if you like," I then offered to them.

"Lance," Melanie replied, "if I stayed here, tonight . . . I don't think I'd want to leave. And I know that for all of us, Douglas, Ronald and I need to go back to the Outside, and do our part to both protect what is here, and prepare the world to share this one day."

I smiled at her.

"Just know . . . I envy you here, Lance," she added. "And I no longer think you're crazy. Roana is right—you didn't belong out there. You are where you were meant to be, and as your former wife, I'm just glad I got to see you here in it."

Amid my surprise and nervousness, Melanie once again hugged and even kissed me . . . fortunately on my cheek, as I tentatively reciprocated in kind, before she stepped back to rejoin her present husband.

"Douglas and I," Melanie then said, "we're People of the Dragon now, too. We have a lot to learn, and then a lot to start doing. We'll apparently be among the first Outside Berkers in America, but we'll grow the tribe, or maybe the movement, over time I think. God, listen to me . . . I'm starting to sound like you now, Lance."

"I couldn't be happier," I simply replied with a broad smile.

"Hey, Dragon Chief," Roana now said beside me, "it's time to be getting home to a dragon who deserves to hear a detailed story about all the good that she helped make happen here today, don't you think?"

"I think I should be reading quotations to her as well," I decided.

"As long as you'll let me help . . . _verrry_ close beside you," Roana qualified with a smile as she pressed herself against me.

"Deal," I sighed with almost a shudder of pleasurable anticipation at what my mate was none too subtly hinting at with her actions and even possessive vibes now.

"Chief, any words to the Outside Berkers?" the video cameraman then asked me directly as Roana stood beside me.

I looked down briefly. "I can only hope that I will do my job here," I then said, looking into the camera and not trying to hide my Canadian background, "as well as each of you do your jobs for us out there, every day. I can't tell you how grateful my mate, Roana, our family, our village, and I are for all you do out there. Fyrir því drekar."

I then looked to Roana with a subtle smile. "Tusen takk, Onkel . . . Þakka þér," was all she chose to say to the camera as she stood close with her arm around me.

The cameraman then backed away from us to briefly tape final shots of other village scenes of humans and dragons living peacefully together, as the Baroness now approached us.

"I think I will return to the Outside with Melanie and Douglas from here," she decided. "So give Substance my best, and assure her I will be seeing all of you, hopefully before very long again at all. We have opened a new age together, Lance . . . and it feels so very good."

Now even the Baroness stepped forward and gave me a heartfelt embrace, as I once again overcame a degree of surprise to embrace her back in kind.

"Take care, Jarldis," I wished to her. "Don't stay away for long . . . and don't be alone out there, okay?"

The Baroness looked at me for a second, with a deep smile on her face and a tear in her eyes, before she, too gave me a kiss on the cheek. But then, she lingered. This refined woman now quietly cried against my shoulder as I held her.

"Sorry," she quietly sniffed as she nonetheless remained, almost hiding her face against me. "I just haven't had an equal to mourn with. Everyone out there can't call me anything other than 'Baronessen', 'Min herskerinne', or 'Frue'."

"You will always, _always_ be Jarldis to us," I assured, lifting this elegant but very human lady's face to look her in the eyes, before I kissed her on the cheek as well.

"I will make time to see you all again soon," she vowed. "Maybe even save me a house here."

"Just plan on sharing ours when you visit," I offered. "No one lives alone here . . . and we have a loft you can enjoy to yourself."

"You have no idea how I look forward to that, Lance," she replied.

"Come back," I said, "just as soon as you can."

Giving me one more incredibly grateful hug and kiss on my cheek, the Baroness tore herself away from me, and turned to usher Melanie and Douglas with Ronald back to her helicopter.

"Well," my mate finally sighed to me as the helicopter then began powering up to take off with our guests and their Outsider Guardian entourage, "I didn't quite know if I would get you back here or not."

"What do you mean?" I queried, smiling as we watched that helicopter then lift itself into the air while it was accompanied by several Dragons and Riders.

"I was initially afraid Melanie was the charmer this morning," she said. "But Lance, you're the real charmer around here. Three ladies after you? Even hot for you?"

"Not the Baroness," I said somewhat incredulously.

"Ohh yes the Baroness," Roana countered. "If you were unclaimed, she would have taken you home with her. I could see it, as well as feel it. And Melanie was ready to 'shack up' again with you, too. I am going to have to keep an eye on you, my sir . . . even a tight leash."

"Roana," I said in almost a warning tone, " . . . woof."

"I'm a Dragon Berker. Roars get to me even more," she quietly said, drawing close to me as Rökkr and Spring stood next to us, poised and ready to go back to the station.

I then grabbed Roana and kissed her hard, roaring with all my might into her mouth and feeling her go utterly limp in my arms as I did.

Our evening was now at hand, and tonight I felt like being the unquestioned top dragon between Roana and I. I was an in-demand male after all.

Roaring? I was just getting started.

— — — — —

But all that seemed to change though when we arrived back at the station, to find Substance just looking down on the boat ramp as she faced the sea, quietly moaning. She didn't seem to acknowledge us as Rökkr landed Roana and I practically next to her.

"You missed him today, didn't you?" I gently observed as I came and knelt down next to my dragon's head.

"Yes," she simply said. "Called him to my memory and mind . . . allowed those feelings in me again. Had to win Mel-lan-nie over, no matter the pain. She had to see my heart, at its worst."

"You did it, Substance," I praised. "You and Amund. Thanks to you both, Melanie and Douglas are one with us now."

"That good," she said. "But all I have lost . . . it overwhelms me again."

"Rökkr, quick trip," Roana now decided. "The rest of you get ready for bed, okay?" Without explaining why, she just hopped into his saddle and they bounded off into the air from the boat ramp. I just gave a confused look to Spring next to me, and even he could only shrug.

"Substance, you had anything to eat?" I then asked.

"Don't feel like it," she replied.

"I understand," I said. "But what is best for all of us here? For our people, our family, even you? What is Amund suggesting?"

Substance almost gave out a gentle laugh as her head still hung down. "Eat," she said.

"I get," Spring offered as he now walked out to the kitchen and lounge.

"Ert þú hættir alltaf at vera gótur barn? Do you ever stop being a good kid?" I asked him.

"I dragon," he simply replied as he left.

"If I didn't know better," I said to Substance while the rest of our family was now gone, "I would say you dragons might almost consider yourselves superior to us humans."

"If we superior, you would live in our world," she said, "not we in tiny piece of yours. We not superior. That what Nazis and so many others believed. Such thinking leads only to bad."

"Substance," I now awkwardly confessed, " . . . I feel like a poor successor to Amund for you. Honestly, I would like to do better, much better. What could I do for you, really?"

My dragon seemed to think for a moment. "What you do when still in love with someone no longer here?" she asked. "When I allow myself to think about it . . . I still love him. I love tribe, family, Rökkr, and you, too. But I love him."

We both seemed at a loss as we waited briefly for Spring to return with salmon for Substance, and for Roana and Rökkr to return from wherever they had gone off to, presumably the village.

Soon though, Spring and I had Substance fed and settled in the family bedding inside the boathouse space for the evening as Rökkr and Roana finally returned.

"Substance," my mate said mysteriously as she dismounted from her dragon, now carrying a leather satchel slung on her shoulder as I just closed the boathouse doors behind her and Rökkr, "we found something for you, back in the village. Villagers and the MJK had to help me take the Archive door off its hinges to get around the lock without your key, but here it is. And there's a message inside it for you."

"For me?" Substance now wondered, raising and turning her large head.

"Gather round, family," Roana now encouraged as she held, even almost toyed with our curiosity as we settled on the bedding close together.

With Roana and I sitting against Substance, Rökkr curled around her and looking at us over her shoulder, and Spring curled up beside me, Roana finally withdrew her surprise from the satchel.

"Book of World Quotations," I said, reading the cover of that precious book.

Substance just began quietly moaning, dropping her head.

"No, Substance. Listen," Roana now urged as she opened the book on my lap and unfolded a sheet of paper that was tucked inside its back cover. "Lance, please read this, to all of us," she then requested.

"Til at ástvinur Hjarta mínu. To my beloved Heart," I now read from the handwritten letter in both our languages. "Vit erum ein á fleiri vegu en annat hvort af okkur gæti ímyndat sér. We are one in more ways than either of us could imagine. Þú hefur kennt mér, og ek hef kennt þér. You have taught me, and I have taught you. Í þessari bók höfum vit bæti fundit skilning, ást, hlátur. Allt. In this book we both find understanding, love, laughter. Everything. Ek elska þig nóg til at segja þér at ef þú lifa lengur mig, veit at þú munt enn vera fær til finna mig hér—í þessum sítum, í hvert tilvísun ek las at þér langar vetur okkar saman. I love you enough to tell you that if you outlive me, know that you will still be able to find me here—in these pages, in every quote I read to you over our long winters together.

"En þú þarft einhvern til at minnsta kosti at opna þessa bók fyrir þig, svo í at leita at mér, þú munt ekki vera einn," the letter continued as I read it aloud. "But you will need someone to at least open this book for you, so in searching for me, you will not be alone. Ek vil aldrei at lesa þetta til þín sjálfur, en ef einhver er at lesa hana til þín, ek veit at ek elska þig, Hjarta, og ek er at bíta eftir þér í Ásgard. I never want to read this to you myself, but if someone is reading it to you, know that I love you, Heart, and I am waiting for you in Asgard. Andi hefur þegar skipt okkur í þessu lífi. Spirit has already divided us in this life. En eins og vit höfum deilt, þat er ástæta. But as we have shared, there is a reason. Þat er alltaf ástæta. There is always a reason. Finna þessi ástætu, og þú hefur fundit mig aftur. Find this reason, and you have found me again. Gót veiti, Hjarta mitt, alltaf. Good hunting, my Heart, always. þinn Amund. Your Amund."

I then looked at Substance next to us. Her head was no longer lowered, but her eyes were closed. She seemed serene, peaceful. "You are my reason," she finally said, opening her vacant eyes and turning her head towards the rest of us. "Now is my reason."

"You have found Amund again," I praised.

"I getting there," Substance agreed.

Roana, Spring and I then found ourselves having to move as Rökkr now moved on top of her.

Roana laughed as Rökkr grunted, once again laying claim to her neck with his teeth. "He says, 'Find him in me as well,'" she translated.

"And in me," I said, kneeling next to her head as I now embraced her.

"And me!" Spring chimed in as he moved around Roana and I towards Substance's head.

"And me," Roana assured beside me as she laid a hand on Substance as well while Spring now nudged her snout. "Let us surround you with him. Maybe he wanted, even wants you to have a family, Substance, to love you in every way—not just one, or even a few."

"I feel loved," Substance finally admitted almost in surrender, her voice now quivering with a profound joy.

"Mmee fffirrssst," Rökkr now growled deeply, surprising us all as he moved to possessively wrap his wings around her.

"Me first, too . . . with you," Roana then none too subtly suggested as she turned to me.

"Popcorn," Spring said as he now went off down the corridor on his four legs, making a turn to the right towards the station's kitchen. How he would make it—pour in the oil and the kernels—I had no idea. But he could at least heat the pot without problem.

Roana firmly dissuaded me from getting up to help him though. "Let him try," she said as she held me back while seductively beginning to peel my clothing off me. "He's a very bright kid."

Maybe there would be roaring, even laughter, tonight after all.


	33. Chapter 33

"You good?" I heard.

"_Verrry_ good," I gently assured.

Our family was relaxing just outside the boathouse doors at the top of the ramp, trying to soak in the last rays of a setting autumn sun. Rökkr and Substance were relaxing in utter bliss, snuggled close together in the waning sunshine having mated again. Roana and I were relaxing from having mated as well, snuggled within some bedding we had brought out to the ramp. I had now gladly given in to my mate's desire to 'do it', just once, outdoors with her before winter. She was still gratefully kissing me occasionally as the afterglow lingered between us.

"Spring still out there?" my mate asked as she nuzzled my neck.

"Yep," I sighed with a smile, "still flying around, 'guarding our love' as he had pledged to, and having fun up there while he's doing it."

"He is such a good kid," she added. "I'm glad you adopted him."

"I hope he won't be our only kid," I noted, craning my head down to share another kiss with Roana.

"Well, we're working on that, aren't we?" she smiled. "I'll be sure to let you know the moment I feel Spirit working its magic."

"A kid . . . us," I sighed, marvelling now at the prospect, even the possibility. A guy knows he's with his soulmate when he actually wants to have a child with her. "I was scared of having a kid with Melanie," I found myself admitting out loud. "But Ronald doesn't seem so bad now. I'm just kind of glad I found out about him a good while after he was born. Knowing about him as she and I were getting divorced would have made things that much harder."

My mate just drew me back into another kiss with her.

I held and kissed Roana tightly. "Thank you," I said quietly.

"It's all right," she soothed as I continued holding her close under the quilt.

"It's a week later," I sighed, just wanting to lay it out and be totally honest, "and I'm still thinking, 'Gods, what a contrast,' between you and Melanie."

"I'm glad you are," Roana smiled as I looked at her with surprise. "I really am," she assured. "I've told you that it's you and me all the way, in everything. I want to know everything you feel, even past guilts and regrets, so I can love all of you," she now encouraged in between kisses. "Every. Last. Bit."

"You're incredible," I admired, gently rocking her against me in the loose quilts and bedding some more. Then I saw something white fall on her cheek. "A snowflake," I said. "It just kissed your cheek here."

"The first one," she smiled at me. "And there's one on you now, too. Want to move all this inside before it really gets cold and dark?"

"I suppose so," I sighed as we rolled apart a little and began sitting up. Then it hit me. "Oh my God . . . Ingathering," I said.

"Relax," my mate replied, holding onto me tightly as I sat up in the bedding. "Remember, the MJK just flew in two full refrigerated containers of food yesterday, with more to come. There's no way we have enough flying dragons to get all the fish both they and we need for winter, and our remaining livestock isn't enough for us either. We're just fortunate that the military doesn't like its troops to starve. That, and we're finally allowing our Outside Network to really help us now."

"So I miss out on my first Ingathering?" I wondered.

"I'll let you pick a few vegetables in the valley fields if it will make you feel better," she quipped.

"We can't even feed ourselves as a tribe anymore," I sighed, shaking my head.

"No, we eat much better now," my mate encouraged sitting close against me as more snowflakes started falling on us. "The last winter a couple years ago—that I can remember—we fell short on our fish quota anyway due to overfishing in the area by outsiders. Our dragons sometimes had to travel far out to sea, well into the winter, to search for schools of fish near the surface. Some of them didn't return, and weren't even found by the Outside Berkers, including from this station, who searched for them. Roald should have asked for assistance from our Outside Network, but he kept assuring the village, 'We can handle it.' It was getting bad for us . . . so bad."

I just drew Roana back close to me again, tucking her head against my shoulder and neck, and rocking her.

"Can you see why I haven't wanted to lead without you?" she asked.

"Yeah," I agreed as our eyes met. "You were being groomed, even trained, to take on a lot, weren't you?"

She just laid her head on my shoulder again and looked across me. "There are times I'm surprised I wasn't getting down on my knees begging you to come mate with me . . . at least from what you've told me." She moved her head and looked up at me. "I didn't, did I?" she asked.

"No," I gently smiled, giving her another reassuring hug. "You didn't. I was just being hesitant and difficult, that's all."

"Would you tell me stories about us?" she asked. "Not right now, because we should be getting dinner on soon. But this winter, when days are indistinguishable from nights—when we have plenty of time to just be. Would you tell me our story then?"

"Roana," I sighed, drawing her back into a kiss, "I would love to."

"Thank you," she gratefully accepted as she nestled herself close against me once more.

"My lonely Norse Princess," I soothed as I cradled her tightly.

"And my sad Canadian genius," she replied, holding me just as much, "with the weight of the world and rival superpowers on his shoulders, and no one to help him bear it all."

"You can call me your Norse genius, even your Viking genius, if you like," I offered.

"Really?" Roana responded with some surprise.

"Yeah," I affirmed, "because that's what I feel I'm becoming. Canada is feeling both far away and long ago to me now. My heart, my being, is of this land, here . . . even if I still prefer speaking English."

"Lance . . ." my mate smiled warmly. "I get my foreigner to help me keep my English up, and he turns out to have the heart of a Viking anyway."

"Yes you do," I agreed as we kissed again. "But I wasn't entirely alone when I did what I had to do out there," I then clarified. "The American president at least was a true friend when we decided to make Lazarus look like a failure. He asked for my recommendation, and accepted it without question, even promoting me to colonel on the spot so I had the room to implement our decision with less interference. Giving me a letter to flash that said I had full presidential authority to act on that matter without being questioned didn't hurt either. Although I was doing it alone, all by myself in my office and lab, destroying my notes and cultures, all traces of those last successful protein sequences . . . I felt the entire world, and the future of humanity was at my side, supporting me all the way."

"Lance, thank you for doing what you did," my mate said, "on behalf of all the rest of us, including the dragons."

I just continued to hold Roana close, finally feeling truly understood. "That is a gift," I whispered.

"You are a gift, too, Lance," she said as we both paused for a moment. "But you know, this whole year is a gift," she then continued, "even the way things are now. And I am thankful for you, my love, most of all. You want to gather something in? Take me in . . . please," she invited.

I laid Roana back down amid our bedding outdoors there, and made love with her one more time as the snow began gently falling on us in earnest. The little cold twinges as the snowflakes hit my back, the increasing fogs of the breaths I shared with my mate as the temperature around us now plunged . . . it was the most beautiful way to welcome fall, even winter, that I could ask for.

— — — — —

Amazingly, we wound up staying out there, at the top of the boat ramp as snowflakes gently fell on us a while longer—huddled close together under the thick quilt, just watching the snow fall.

"Hey," I mused, "we can finally at least blow puffs of foggy breath, almost like dragons blowing smoke."

Roana and I then each did our best to at least blow streams of fog, before Rökkr just decided to fire off a real blast near us.

"Show off," I kidded him.

Both our dragon and human couples laughed. We all then sighed at the same time. This had indeed been a wonderful and relaxing day off.

Then my son landed beside us, holding a big salmon in his mouth.

"Vel gert, Spring, well done!" I praised, reaching up and giving his head a firm rub as I still embraced Roana with the other arm.

He just dropped it beside us however, and took off again going back for more. Rökkr now rose up beside Substance, roaring and taking off as well to fish with our son while the fish were there to be had.

"Well," my mate smiled, "I guess you get a bit of Ingathering here after all. There will be more shortly besides this one, and even though our dragons can eat a fair amount, there will still be some to clean and store for future days. Fish don't clean and store themselves."

"Roana," I smiled as I sat up, "thank you for drawing me into this life. I think I honestly would have eventually killed myself if I had remained on the outside," I now confessed with a tear in my eye.

My mate now sat up and held me tightly, still unclothed, as the snow continued to gently fall on us and our bedding.

"No," she assured, with a tear in her eye. "You would have been strong . . . and I would have found you out there, no matter what."

"I am gonna be loving snow for the rest of my life now," I sniffed.

"Me, too," Roana breathed as we kissed bare in it one more time.

— — — — —

Winter's arrival left us with one problem however; and by the afternoon of the next day as the snow continued to worsen, even I realized we couldn't put it off any longer. While Ingathering was being frantically rushed on our island before everything began to really freeze up, Rökkr, Roana and I came back to the station early while there was still daylight.

"Substance, our family needs to be living back in the village," I sighed to my dragon as soon as we reentered the boathouse space and found her. "Roana and I can't keep commuting on Rökkr as the weather really closes in here. I've been told that even our Dragon Riders stop flying once winter really takes hold. We need to go back," I said, kneeling beside her as she faced blankly towards a wall, "and you need to allow us to fly you there on a helicopter, and allow yourself a winter to really recover from all you've suffered."

"I not crippled," she said.

"No you're not," I affirmed. "But you're not fully healed yet, either, and we need to train together—in fair weather—to return to flying again, the way we are now. I am with you in this, Substance, all the way. It will take time, but I will be right there . . . learning, and flying again, with you. Just let me call in the helicopter, so we can get you back to the village, and back into our own home, before we're stuck here, apart from those who need us . . . both of us."

"For village?" she said, almost looking for an excuse to accept.

"For the village," I agreed. "A Guardian should let nothing stand in the way, not even pride, from serving our tribe as best we can."

"Lannce," she said, finally turning her large black head with its vacant, clouded eyes towards me, "I will fly with you again."

"I know you will," I pledged, "and I won't let you out of that one."

"Call helicopter," she accepted.

"I love you, Substance," I said, embracing her head tightly as I saw tears begin to leak from her eyes. "I know how hard this is for you."

— — — — —

Our family finished packing up at the lifeboat station that afternoon and evening as a dark, howling snowstorm closed in. Rökkr, and even Spring, were all packed and ready to go inside the boathouse carrying satchels on their backs, and the Royal Norwegian Air Force helicopter we had requested was now parked on the helipad outside.

"Roana, I wish you, Rökkr and Spring hadn't waited," I sighed as I shouldered a final bag of belongings in the station office to take back to the village with me.

"We've flown in worse," my mate assured, dressed warmly in her flying jacket and gloves, as I was, too.

"What about Spring?" I pressed.

"Rökkr and I won't let him, or your helicopter, out of our sight," she pledged.

"No, you three fly home, as fast as you can," I countered.

"They're having to de-ice the helicopter out there," my mate replied, pointing out the office windows, "with the help of our Outside Guardians. So no dice! We're keeping an eye on you, Chief."

A heavily dressed helicopter pilot now burst through the office door, almost being pushed by the fierce winds and snow. "It's now or never, sir," he said in English with a moderate Norwegian accent, catching his breath.

"I love you," Roana said as we kissed.

"I love you, too," I sighed as we then broke, she for the boathouse and ramp with Rökkr and Spring, as Substance and I followed the pilot out the office door to a path and helipad that were already buried in almost a half-foot of snow. Substance walked with some difficulty, but was able to climb into the helicopter, wrapping herself around the single chair in the payload bay as before while the pilot shut us both in. While she wasn't carrying a satchel, Substance did have me dress her up in her saddle for the first time since the battle. "Easier than carrying it," she had said.

Soon, the pilot was seated in front of us, and was powering up the craft's turbines for flight. I looked out the side windows and could hardly see the lights of the station and its windows anymore.

"Roana, you there?" I said into the military walkie-talkie I had been given.

"We're ready," I heard back. "Just waiting for you to take off and fly past us. Then we'll take off and fly alongside."

"Please go for home," I requested again. "This weather is too dangerous now."

"Sorry, Chief," I heard back, "Rökkr, Spring and I are your guardians for this trip."

"Copy," I surrendered, almost in frustration, knowing what she meant by that. "Pilot, let's go . . . and make this trip quick."

"Taking off now, sir," the pilot replied. He and his co-pilot watched their instruments carefully as I now felt our helicopter finally take to the air.

"We're airborne," I said into the walkie-talkie now.

"Copy that," the reply came back from my mate. "We see you. Airborne ourselves now and coming up on your left side. I'm keeping Spring right beside us here."

"Roger," I confirmed, looking out the left windows for them amid the blizzard conditions, but realizing that trying to look for black Night Furies in a driving snowstorm at night would likely be an exercise in futility. I looked and looked though as we began cruising over the sound towards the island.

Finally, I saw a large, black wing flapping slightly below us, and barely able to make out an equally black body and a brown-jacketed rider perched on it. "I see you," I now radioed.

"Rökkr says to tell the pilot he's off course," Roana radioed back. "Come left a little. The course should be Two-Five-Five Degrees True from the station."

"Pilot, is your course Two-Five-Five?" I asked.

"Sorry sir, it's Two-Nine-Zero," the pilot replied. "Coming left to Two-Five-Five."

"Make your altitude Twenty-Five Hundred Feet to clear those mountains of ours," I added.

"Yes sir," the pilot confirmed. "Rising to Twenty-Five Hundred. Course now Two-Five-Five as ordered."

"Roana, we're flying blind here," I radioed. "It's up to Rökkr to get us there. I've ordered course Two-Five-Five at Twenty-Five Hundred feet."

"That should do it," she radioed back. "Still right beside you. We can see you if you can't see us."

"Roger," I confirmed. It didn't feel like we were rising though as we should be however.

"Sir," the pilot now said. "We're having trouble gaining altitude."

"What's your altitude?" I asked.

"Fifteen Hundred," he replied. "We are at maximum RPMs on the turbines, but it's having no further effect."

"Turn back!" I ordered. "Roana," I then radioed, "we're icing up, and can't gain altitude. We're at Fifteen Hundred, which isn't enough. I'm ordering us to turn back."

"Copy. We're staying with you," I heard in reply.

An alarm now went off in the cockpit ahead of me.

"We're losing altitude. Icing!" the pilot relayed.

I heard a bang above and behind us, and then felt us beginning to drop faster.

"Turbine failure!" the pilot reported. "Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!" he then began to radio, making a distress call. "Dette er Luftforsvaret Helikopter To Null Tre. Vi går ned på grunn av ising av Nofastor livbåtstasjon! Mayday!"

"Dette er Nofastor livbåtstasjon," we immediately heard back. Thank goodness the lifeboat crew was already reoccupying the station we had just left. "Vi erkjenner, men vår båt er ikke tilbake ennå. Det er går fra Wønur."

They were reporting that their lifeboat was just starting to return from Wønur however, where it had been based while my family was occupying the station itself. They were not going to be of any immediate help.

"Roana, we're going down!" I quickly radioed.

"Get out of there!" she urgently radioed back.

"Lannce, co-pilot, with me!" Substance commanded. "Pilot, jump out your side! Rökkr catch you. GO! NOW!"

I instinctively rose out of my seat, with my knapsack on my shoulder, grabbing for the saddlebars on my dragon. Substance now fired a blast beside her, blowing out the door on the right side of the helicopter, exposing us to driving, blinding snow.

I didn't have time to think as Substance dragged me by the saddlebars out the helicopter's side as the co-pilot opened his door to join us. Feeling him against her left foreleg, Substance just grabbed him as he started to fall while she flew us all into the nighttime snow, narrowly escaping the helicopter's still spinning rotor blades above us.

I looked back to see the helicopter now falling away below us at an increasing angle towards the sea below as I pulled myself into the saddle.

"I'm in, Substance!" I yelled amid the howling storm.

"Got co-pilot tucked in legs!" she roared back.

"Where are you going?" I asked, feeling her bank left now, seeming to head west, rather than east back towards the station.

"Home!" she replied. "Closer!"

"Roana," I radioed, "Substance is insisting on heading west to the island, rather than back to the station."

There was an uncomfortable pause now.

"Roana, respond!" I radioed again.

"Rökkr agrees," she finally replied. "We have pilot. Spring with us. Proceeding west to island."

"Roger," I replied. "We have co-pilot."

I then heard a dragon's roar, as Substance soon roared back and banked to the left again.

Substance and Rökkr kept roaring back and forth until I could just see them next to us through the blinding snowstorm.

It suddenly hit me that my dragon and I were flying again, for the first time since the battle. "How are you doing, Substance?" I yelled amid the wind and snow.

"Fine!" she replied. "Told you I would!"

"Alright! Alright!" I surrendered, giving her head a firm pat in front of me.

Substance and Rökkr both roared again. We could now hear faint echoes in front of us. Both our grown dragons powered us higher into the air. I could only hope Spring was keeping up alongside us. I couldn't see him.

Suddenly, snow-covered treetops appeared right in front of us.

"Substance! Treetops in front! Five metres higher!" I quickly said as Rökkr roared as well. The dragons beat their wings hard, pushing us all higher. The treetops just brushed the tips of my boots in the saddle stirrups.

"Okay, we're clear," I said, breathing a sigh of relief. "You can level out, Substance. We've passed over the eastern summits."

"Thank you," Substance replied. "I hear that."

"You do?" I wondered.

"Yes," she simply said. "Know where I am now. Flown around these mountains whole life. Know what they sound like. Hang on, descending."

Once again though, I could see absolutely nothing in front of us other than blinding snow. I looked to my left. Rökkr, Roana, and our pilot that Rökkr was carrying were still beside us as our dragons now began a gradual descent.

"Substance," I confessed to one of my dragon's ears next to my hands wrapped around the saddle bars, "I will never doubt or underestimate you again."

"Good," she simply barked in front of me. I could tell she was relishing this now, despite the terrible blizzard around us. My dragon roared again, and like she had done in the attack, now even took a slight lead ahead of Rökkr. And thank the gods, I could just make out Spring, still flying on Rökkr's left side.

"Substance, I can't see a thing!" I said to her as she continued to gradually descend through the snowstorm towards the village that was somewhere ahead of us.

"You in my world now!" she barked. "Relax!"

"Okay," I accepted with a smile, patting my dragon's neck again, and trusting that somehow she would set us down in our village.

She roared again and again. This time Rökkr kept silent as he just followed behind us—I presumed so as not to confuse Substance as she listened carefully for echoes, which was confirmed as I saw her ears pivoting rapidly on either side of my hands.

"Radio!" she then barked to me. "Have them sound horns for landing."

"Berk! Calling Berk! This is Chief on Substance!" I radioed. "We bailed out of helicopter. Sound horns where we should land. Over!"

"Berk MJK. Copy, Chief," I heard back on the radio. I was still getting used to being able to radio our village, in English no less if I desired, but I was glad an MJK platoon was there running a transmitter, especially now. "Is everyone accounted for?" they then radioed. "Should we send out Dragon Riders? Over."

"Negative," I radioed back. "All of us are safe in the air with our dragons. We've just cleared the eastern mountains and Substance appears confident she can hear where the village is ahead of us. Just blow those horns, and also notify the lifeboat station that we've rescued ourselves. Over."

"Copy, Chief," I then heard back as we then heard traditional Berker horns being blown in the distance ahead of us through the blinding snow. I could feel Substance subtly altering her wings and our trajectory as we continued to descend.

Finally, dim, but probing military flashlights began to appear ahead amid the snowstorm. Our usual outdoor torches would not stay lit in this weather. It soon sounded like we were almost right on top of the horns, as well as a number of other dragon roars. The echoes from them and Substance's occasional continued barks made it sound like we were practically among the village houses now. Substance flew us to almost a hover in the air, slowly lowering us further amid the blizzard.

"Co-pilot," she barked to our passenger. "Step down and out of way! Landing!"

"On the ground!" the co-pilot confirmed as he dropped and rolled out of Substance's way on a blanket of white that now appeared beneath us.

To my unending relief, my dragon now landed us on the snowy ground of our commons . . . just steps away from our own house that we could barely see.

"Substance you did it!" I yelled amid the storm, hugging my dragon's neck and head tightly from the saddle.

"And you said helicopter!" she chided.

"I was wrong about you, Substance," I gladly admitted as Rökkr, Roana and Spring landed near us as well. "You can roar it to the village if you like, but let's get out of this snow, okay?"

"Warm scrub!" she barked. "Need it!"

"Anything you want!" I assured as I dismounted from her.

Several villagers, soldiers and dragons briefly gathered around us. "You alright, sir?" I heard someone ask me.

"Yes, O'Connell, we're fine," I said, recognizing our resident SEAL member's voice, but not the rest of him with the heavy winter gear he was wearing. "But with this weather closing in, it looks like you're stuck with us for now."

"Just what I wanted, sir," he assured. "I'm advising my superiors that I should stay the entire winter to prepare a dragon training regimen for the rest of my platoon. If they ask you—"

"Don't worry," I assured. "I'll say yes."

"I'm standing down the Dragon Riders, sir," he added. "All seven of us, plus the five MJK Riders with dragons so far, were ready to take off in case you needed us. But I heard you bailed out of the helicopter, so I presume it's totalled."

"It's likely at the bottom of the sound by now," I replied. "Good job, though, O'Connell. But they're letting you call the shots?" I wondered.

"Garrison and I were on duty this evening, sir," he noted. "Dragon Rider tradition—those on duty lead."

"Of course," I now remembered to my slight chagrin. "Make sure the village is secured against this storm, and then get Garrison and yourself out of this weather."

Then it dawned on me. "Alexi!" I said to O'Connell. "Did we get Alexi Ivarovich down from the dragon caves?"

"No sir," he replied. "We weren't told he needed to be moved."

"I can't believe we didn't remember to get him earlier!" I said, now kicking myself.

"We were all a little busy with Ingathering today," Roana reminded as she came up next to me. "But I want him down here, where he can be watched. It could be days before this storm lets up. He can't be without medication that long, and his dragon can't give them to him. We're out here now—let's just get him, quickly. It will take just a matter of minutes on dragons."

"Spring, Substance, go inside our house," I then directed. "Roana, Rökkr and I will be right back."

"I find cave in storm," Substance replied back, not moving from my side now.

"Substance, no," I almost yelled amid the fierce blizzard. "You've done enough. Please go inside."

"Do not treat me like invalid!" she barked right back. "Do not shame me now in village. I am Guardian!"

"What if you go down out there?" I countered. "With both of us?"

"I won't!" she replied with determination, even an iron look at me despite her lifeless eyes.

Suddenly, I was accutely conscious of the others watching my dragon and I. No one spoke a word though as Substance and I almost faced each other down. It was the first real disagreement she and I had ever had.

I found that I just couldn't do it though.

"Let's go!" I almost angrily shouted as I tossed aside my knapsack to a nearby villager, and climbed back aboard Substance, strapping myself into her saddle again.

Her wings extended and off we flew, right back into the blinding snowstorm.

Substance now let out a long and loud roar as she powered us up the valley towards the dragon caves. Then she went silent as I could feel her steering us slightly to the left, before she let out a couple more loud roars.

I began hearing similar roars back, but I couldn't be sure if they were echoes or other dragons.

"Lance, come in," I heard on my radio.

"I'm here," I replied picking it up in my hand, knowing it was Roana.

"You two took off before I could gather clothing, blankets and netting to transport Alexi in," she noted, "let alone relieve Rökkr of his satchel."

"Sorry," I apologised with a degree of frustration.

"Rökkr, I, and O'Connell with Garrison will be taking off in a second to follow you," she radioed. "I just hope we can find the caves, let alone you."

I now felt Substance bank hard around in the snowstorm.

"I see!" she said. "I hear where mountains are. I know where I am in valley. They can't! I can!"

"We're coming back for you," I radioed.

"Don't let her push it too much," Roana replied on my walkie-talkie.

"You hear that, Substance?" I warned. "That's your doctor talking."

Substance just roared now as even I sensed us approaching the village again, which was confirmed as I saw a couple military high-powered flashlights once more piercing the dark whitish turmoil in front of and somewhat below us.

"I can't stop her now," I radioed back.

"We're taking off," I then heard on my radio as Substance spun herself and I around again. It now felt like we were flying inside a swirling snow globe with the lights out. But sure enough, Rökkr and Roana, as well as Garrison and O'Connell rose up on either side of Substance and I, with O'Connell sweeping a flashlight around and briefly on us. At least Spring was seeming to do as he was told and staying behind. But Substance just roared again and powered us forward even faster. Rökkr and Garrison now strained to keep up as we flew off among the pelting flakes of snow.

"You're getting overconfident!" I warned my dragon as she flew on amid the swirling gloom, making periodic sharp barks that seemed to bounce off the mountain slopes on either side of us.

"Quiet!" Substance barked as she now seemed to slow in the air somewhat, but then picking up speed again. Soon, after another bark, she suddenly banked and pivoted to the left, and was leading us all to set down on the snowy ground in front of what looked like some large boulders at the base of one mountainside.

"Substance . . ." I said to her with some cautious regret, "there are no caves here. Just rocks at the base of a mountain."

She now slowly dropped her head, almost seemingly in shame . . . before we were startled by a couple dragon roars. They were loud and seemed close by, just a dozen or so yards or metres to the right. These were confirmed by two streams of flame that were now shot into the air, piercing the snowy night.

"Substance, turn to the right," I sighed, still seated on her saddle. "You were off by just a few metres."

I could practically _feel_ the air of smugness now radiating from my dragon as she almost triumphantly walked us into the dragon caves while I continued to orally guide her, before dismounting from her saddle.

"Substance . . ." Roana began to say in an admonishing tone as she now approached us, carrying clothing and blankets to wrap Alexi in. But even she didn't have the heart to scold my dragon amid her first real moment of accomplishment since the battle. "I'm checking you out before we take off again here. So stay put for the moment."

"Yes, Doctor," my dragon blithely responded as I just shook my head at her before joining Roana as she approached Alexi and his dragon.

"Storm surprised us," Alexi weakly excused as we found him, comfortably nestled as always, encircled by his Nightmare. "So Dragon just keep me warm here."

"When did you last take your medications, or food and drink?" Roana asked as she proceeded to take his wrist and check his pulse and vitals.

"Injected myself once this afternoon, when no people came," he said with somewhat of a slur. "Dragon give me fish and bucket of water as well."

"Open your mouth and say, 'Aaaaahh," Roana then instructed as she checked both his mouth and eyes with a penlight.

"Aaaaaaaaaahhh," her Russian patient obediently responded as she wiped her her now ungloved finger with an alcohol wipe and dabbed his tongue with that finger, lacking a tongue depressor at the moment.

"You're somewhat dehydrated anyway," my mate diagnosed, wiping her finger again afterwards. "You haven't been drinking enough. Your tongue is too dry. As much as you and your dragon might like living here, you're going to have to come down to the village where we can put you on a drip feed, okay?"

"Da, Doctor," Alexi acquiesced as Roana turned and grunted to his dragon. Initially to my surprise, the Nightmare shook her head though.

"Alright," my mate sighed. "You can carry him. But I'm riding with you two," before she then grunted presumably the same response. This time the red dragon agreed with a single nod.

"Dragons," Roana then quietly noted aside to me with another sigh, "they can be so stubborn at times."

"Tell me about it," I agreed.

"Thanks for reminding me," she said, getting up and heading back over to Substance, walking amid other dragons in the cave who were packed close together for warmth. "Substance, spread your right wing, please," Roana instructed my dragon. She then ran her hands along the leading edges of Substance's wing and around her shoulder area as well, prodding hard at times, before standing up and walking around to my dragon's other side. "Now your left wing," my mate directed.

I could sense Roana was not pleased at what she was seeing from my dragon.

"Substance, if we were back in the village, I'd ground you right now," my mate sternly warned, facing her again. "At minimum you're pulling a few muscles, and I can feel swelling on each side that's not good either. You lead us back calm, level and _slow_, alright?" she emphasized. "No antics in the air . . . but you can lead us."

"Yes, Doctor," my dragon accepted with a more sober, but still accomplished tone.

Roana then turned and started to walk back towards Alexi. "She is so damned incredible," my mate briefly whispered in my ear as she passed me, almost in frustration.

"Thank you, Doctor," my dragon said, turning her head towards us.

"I think she heard you," I smiled with chagrin myself.

Roana just rolled her eyes, unable to suppress her own smile now as we both turned and set to work dressing Alexi warmly in clothing and blankets, before strapping him down carefully with netting on his dragon's back for flight.

— — — — —

Finally, it was time to go down the valley back to the village. I remounted Substance, but now she groaned as she walked back to the cave entrance and started to stretch her wings again for take-off.

"Substance," I said with concern, "you okay?"

"I make it," she replied, seeming to grimace now with some difficulty.

"We can spend the night here in the caves if we have to," I suggested. "I'll stay with you."

"Home," she decided, just taking us both now back up into the amorphous blizzard as Rökkr, Garrison and Alexi's Nightmare took off behind us.

As we turned to head down the valley, I felt Substance begin to falter beneath me this time.

"Come on, Substance," I encouraged.

"Pain," she said. "Roana right."

"No," I quickly said, now laying myself down on my dragon's neck and talking right into an ear of hers. "She was wrong. You have more in you yet. I know it. Bark your way down the valley. Power your wings. Push us through the air to safety and warmth. You've faced down bullets and bombs. This is nothing now. I believe in you. I. Love. You."

I then just planted my face at the junction of Substance's neck and head, kissing it first, and then gnawing on it, as a dragon mate would. I didn't know whether that was proper for a human companion and rider to do to their dragon or not. But I didn't care. I just wanted to do whatever it would take to give Substance the stimulation and strength to guide and get us all home.

Substance now let out a surprisingly loud roar. I could feel it through her neck, even throughout my mouth and body.

"Go, Substance. Go," I said right into her ear as I kissed and gnawed on that a little, too.

I could feel my dragon seem to regain some of her strength. Her wings began beating harder and with more power beneath me. She barked sharply as the echoes bounced off the mountains either side of us while her ears now moved either side of my face to better pick up the sounds. I saw Rökkr now flying by himself alongside us. Despite the darkness, I sensed he was kind of looking at me in a certain way, almost seeming to wonder if I was moving in on his mate.

"I'm just getting us all home, buddy!" I assured him amid the blizzard.

He then swooped over underneath Substance and I, barking at Substance, almost seeming to be inviting her to partly land on and be supported by him. Substance barked in reply though beating her wings and forcing herself onward above him as Rökkr then moved off to the side again in the snow-filled air.

"Berk MJK," I radioed, "this is Chief. We are en route back. Flash lights and sound horns for guidance and landing in village."

"Berk MJK, copy," I heard back on my military walkie-talkie.

Substance was faltering again though, almost flying us at an angle on our left side. Even though I couldn't see it, I could sense the snowy ground beneath us was pretty close.

Rökkr now just dove back underneath us and beat his wings powerfully as he strained to lift both Substance and myself higher into the air. Substance continued beating her own wings in time with his, to make us as light as possible on top of him.

"You need any help, sir?" I now heard on my radio as I looked to just see O'Connell and Garrison flying next to us, while Alexi's Nightmare with Roana and Alexi onboard was flying close behind.

"We seem to be making it now," I radioed back, " . . . just."

Thankfully, we now began hearing horns sounding again in front of us amid the howling blizzard, as flashlights began sweeping to and fro as well.

Substance now barked, beating her wings more forcefully as she tried to lift herself and I off Rökkr's back in preparation for landing in the village.

"Come on, Substance!" I urged. "Almost there."

I saw Rökkr move off to the side again from beneath us, but then I had a very bad feeling as I felt us tilting to the right, even though I had no reference, unable to see the ground.

"Substance . . ." I warned loudly as I instinctively undid my saddle strap and crouched myself down against her. It now almost felt like we were flying sideways. "_FOLD YOUR WINGS!_" I then ordered in panic. Suddenly my face, my entire body was being buried in dense snow, before I began to feel my right side being scraped, even rammed against hard ground beneath us at speed. I found myself being bodilly ripped from the saddle as both Substance and I tumbled through the snow along the ground. My dragon's great mass and even hard vertebral spines rolled over me more than once before we both finally came to a halt.

The pain at places throughout my body now was excruciating. While most of my head had been protected by the hood of my flying jacket, my face was partly scraped and bloodied. With my right side suddenly seeming to be imobilized and useless, I just willed myself to crawl within reach of my dragon's neck though as she moaned, even cried out in pain.

"It's okay, Substance," I tried to assure, breathing hard amid my own shock.

"Over there! Þarna! Der borte!" we then heard shouted in English, Norse and Bokmål near us as others rushed to our aid.

"Lance!" I remember hearing as I saw Roana kneeling over me.

"I-I'm okay," I tried to weakly assure. "Substance . . . care for her," I then urged.

Things were a fog now for me as I lapsed in and out of consciousness. I heard horns sounding again—a general 'call to arms' I recognised, that was used to summon all villagers in an emergency. Having two, perhaps three patients to care for if Alexi was still around, I saw Roana moving quickly back and forth between at least Substance and I, directing medics and others as they began arriving on the scene. Soon, I was being carefully put on a stretcher amid the snow, and was being lifted and moved.

"Substance . . ." I remember saying, not wanting to be parted from her. I was so fiercely a dragon rider and companion now. My first thoughts, as they should be, were for the wellbeing of my dragon. I remember turning my head though, and seeing Substance being bouyed up on the shoulders of what must have been around a half dozen military personnel and villagers as she was conveyed right beside me into the village as the nighttime snow continued to howl. Finally, I remember being moved through a door, into the warmth and gentle firelight of a home. I could only presume it was mine.

Knowing Substance and I were safe now, I finally allowed myself to relax into a deeper unconsciousness.

— — — — —

I awoke sometime later. Good parts of me seemed to be numbed. They were certainly bandaged. I could only open and see out of my left eye, my right arm was in a sling and cast, my lower chest and abdomen were tightly wrapped in bandages, and my right leg was in a cast as well. I saw something written on that leg cast though in red feltpen, as it stuck out from beneath a warm quilt. I strained to lift my bandaged head to read it . . .

_I love you, so much_

. . . it simply said. A heart was drawn next to it.

I knew who had done that as I looked to my left, smiling a little now. Roana was sleeping unclothed under a couple quilts, tight against my relatively uninjured left shoulder and side. I smiled and gently kissed her forehead, inhaling the scent of her hair, but not wanting to disturb her. She had obviously been working very hard.

"Fatir?" I heard on my right side.

"Hi," I replied to my worried dragon son who had been napping next to me on that side. Spring didn't seem able to put into human words what he was feeling; but his eyes, with their mixture of sadness at my injuries yet relief at me waking up again . . . they moved me. He seemed to be hurting for me inside worse than I was.

"Ek mun vera í lagi. I will be okay," I gently assured as I reached across with my unbandaged left hand to stroke his head. "Komdu nær. Come closer," I encouraged, taking him into an embrace now with my left arm. The young Night Fury now pressed against me tightly. It hurt me a little, but he needed that encouragement.

"Þú varst hræddur um at þú værir at fara at missa Substance og ek líka, var ekki þú? You were afraid you were going to lose Substance and I, too, weren't you?" I deduced aloud from his expression and behaviour. He now began to softly moan. "Þat er allt í lagi. It's alright," I soothed him. Losing family had become what he had known in life.

"When we brought you two in," Roana quietly explained beside me, having woken up now, "he said he felt responsible . . . that he had brought his curse upon you, and into our family with him."

"Spring . . . Spring," I said, getting his attention as he opened his eyes and looked at me, "Andi ekki bölva okkur. Spirit does not curse us. Eitthvat af okkur. Any of us. Hvat gertist var ekki þér at kenna. What happened was not your fault."

"No," I then heard from a deep voice next to us, "it was mine. I fail you," Substance replied obviously awake and lying next to Spring, with Rökkr on her other side. To my shock, I now saw massive amounts of bandaging wrapped around her wings and central body, keeping her wings immobile. I wanted to reach up with my right arm to touch and stroke her, but with the cast and sling I couldn't.

"No, Substance," I simply replied, "you didn't fail me." Now it felt like I had two sad dragons to soothe.

Roana now stretched herself beside me, instinctively wrapping an arm and leg across me and drawing me into a grateful and relieved embrace.

"Owww!" I exclaimed though, feeling a number of sharp pains as she squeezed me against herself.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," she said quickly releasing me.

"No, please," I encouraged. "Hold me." I raised my good left arm, extending it around her head and back as I drew her against me this time. "Thank you," I said gratefully to her.

"It's hell, working on family," she sniffed, burying her nose and face against my shoulder. Roana, too, now seemed traumatized.

"I know," I empathized, kissing her forehead again, and gently rocking her a little. "Þat er allt í lagi, fjölskylda. It's okay, family," I soothed to all of them.

"Substance," Roana then asked, "how are you feeling?"

"Pain dull," my dragon replied, quietly.

"You've set your recovery back at least three months now," Roana informed her. "It's just a good thing it's winter . . . and that we're back in our home."

"Sorry . . . Doctor," Substance apologised, seemingly chastened.

"You were just doing your job, your duty to the village," my mate replied though, "as Guardian . . . the Guardian you wanted to be."

"I hurt my rider, my companion . . . again," Substance seemed to regret bitterly, almost in tears.

"Hey . . ." I soothed, trying to scoot myself over against my dragon. "Roana, could you move me against Substance?" I had to request however. "Þú vera rétt þar sem þú ert, Spring, you stay right where you are."

My mate just gently slid me a little further in the bedding so that I was touching Substance with my right shoulder, while Spring remained wedged in between us. "Excuse me a second," I said, taking my left arm back from Roana to undo the knot at the back of my neck of the sling restraining my right arm in its cast.

"Lance," my mate expressed with concern.

"It's okay," I assured as I was now able to stretch that right arm just a little, resting it on the side of Spring's head while he now lay his head with a still sad but grateful expression on my bandaged abdomen. That hurt some, but my son was worth it. He just was.

I then gave my left arm back to Roana, with her lifting her head for me with a smile as I put that arm around her again, gently drawing her close once more, even adding a kiss to the mix.

"Thank you," she smiled gratefully.

"We're good," I assured, holding her as tightly as I could with my left arm, while just able to stroke the unbandaged fingers of my right hand on my dragon son's head. "We are very good. But lying in bandages, surrounded by family, just being grateful," I then said to all of them with a sigh and a smile, "this is what being a husband, father and companion is all about to me now."

"Hvvaatt?" Spring asked.

"Því mitur, Spring, sorry," I said, adding, "Þar í sáraumbútir, umkringdur fjölskyldu, bara at vera þakklátur er þat at vera eiginmatur, fatir og félagi er allt um mig núna," in translation for him. My dragon son smiled while shifting onto his left side somewhat, stretching his right legs, even his wing, across me. All was well for him now. "Sofa, Spring," I encouraged, "sleep." I kept my bandaged right arm around his head. That arm was now his for the night.

Then I turned my attention to the other dragon in my life who seemed to need encouragement at the moment.

"Substance," I said, "you're a hero. You saved the lives of both myself, the helicopter co-pilot, and even the pilot with what you did."

"But then I overdid . . . hurt us both, with arrogance," she replied in self-condemnation.

"You discovered you had a gift," I assured. "A gift of being able to see when the rest of us couldn't. We needed that gift of yours to go get Alexi, and bring him back to the village. We all knew it, even I did."

"But I almost kill you," my dragon replied. "I feel myself rolling on you. I cringe during that. Should have held you in legs, like we trained."

"Like I could even get there while we were both tumbling in the snow," I almost laughed. "Substance . . . it's okay, even all right. We were serving our village, just like we should. And you, you were flying again . . . and best of all, you knew where you were going. I am so proud of you for that, so very proud. I know now that I will never be lost in the air, while I am riding with you, companion."

"If we leave island, we will be lost," my dragon qualified. "I know island, what it sounds like, but not other places."

"That's what my eyes are for," I warmly assured. "We will be an unbeatable team in the skies. You'll see for us in clouds, fog and snow; I'll just see where we need to go in the clear."

Substance turned her head towards me amid our bedding.

"Roana, help me up a little," I requested. Soon, my shoulders were being supported from behind. I tried to hide the pain of twisting myself as my face found Substance's. My dragon nudged me, gratefully accepting my proposition and vision for us both. "We will be great," I said, "together."

"Lannce . . ." my dragon wept as I moved my left arm around her large black head now, drawing her into an embrace.

"I love you, Substance," I sniffed, "and I will fly with you again, anywhere."

"Way to go," Roana assured behind me, "both of you."

"You just keep patching us up as we need it?" I queried with a smile, turning my head towards my mate as Roana continued to warmly support me from behind.

"Always," she promised. "Just please don't do it more often than necessary."

"We won't," I pledged for both my dragon and myself. "Promise."

"You two feel like something to eat or drink though?" my mate then offered, resting her own head on my good left shoulder as we couldn't help but share a kiss again.

"It's an idea," I sighed, "but I hate to see you go right back to work after all you've done for us."

"You both did the hard part, getting injured," Roana assured. "I just get to do the rest. But don't worry, I have help . . . Tana, sumir snakk og te, vinsamlegast?"

"She's here? With us like this? In bed?" I wondered as I began to see our elderly neighbour lady go to work in our cooking area out of the corner of my eye.

"She and her dragon just wouldn't go home," my mate smiled. I now saw the two heads of Tana's Zippleback starting to help in the cooking area as well. "Besides, you've been worrying about her living and coping alone anyway at times. So she's just decided to move in, and I decided not to disagree. She's wanted a sense of family again, especially living alone as she has . . . and really, I have, too."

"But Roana," I sighed with reservation as Tana was already bringing a tray of food towards us.

"But what?" she asked.

I just glanced between Tana and Roana with my one good eye.

"You are a true Ýsa, you know that?" my mate smiled. "Just like Hiccup."

"Glad he had a similar sense of modesty," I sighed, remembering how he had objected in his journal at times to Astrid's straightforward ways as well.

"Villagers often gather closer together in winter," Roana assured still sitting up next to me. "We might not venture outside for days at a time; and if we don't, how would we know that others like Tana need help, or are even sick? She can't understand English anyway, so what really is the problem?"

"Nothing," I sighed almost in surrender, flopping back on my bedding now. "Owww," I winced again, having jarred myself.

"Careful, please don't just flop down like that," my mate warned—after the fact. "Besides, I need her help changing bandages on you and Substance as well, not to mention bathing you two."

"I feel just as embarrassed," Substance chimed in beside us.

"You two," Roana sighed, chiding my dragon and I. "It's going to be a long winter."

"Sorry," I replied.

"Don't apologise," she said. "Just take care of me, and the rest of us, as best you can."

"I am, and I will," I pledged, now drawing her back into a kiss . . . as best I could.

"It's going to be a _good_ long winter," my mate now sighed, nestled against me as I glanced at Tana laying the tray down behind Roana. Even our new elderly housemate and her Zippleback were smiling, seeming to be very happy to be a part of it all, a part of us now.

"Ek lofa," I smiled, appreciating my family in full. "I promise."


	34. Chapter 34

"Wake up!" I heard, even being prodded.

That just didn't feel right.

"Mmmmmmpppphhh," I groaned, shifting amid my covers.

"You've overslept," I continued to hear. "Last night, you said you would make the coffee. Why I ever trust you to do anything, I don't know, you worthless . . . oh, never mind."

I now opened my eyes—wide.

I was in a bed. It had sheets, and was in a bedroom with painted beige walls. Sunshine filtered through light lace curtains drawn over a nearby window, with darker curtains framing the edges.

"Dragons . . ." I instinctively said, beginning to sit up. "I was with dragons . . ."

"You on about that Viking hobby of yours again?" the irritated female voice said behind me. "I swear, you spend way too much time with your nose buried in those books."

"My arm," I then noted in confusion, looking at my right arm and hand, " . . . it-it was broken."

"What are you on about?" she sighed. "You've been so cautious, you haven't broken a bone in your body since I've known you. But if you do somehow manage to break anything, you might as well be on your own. I don't have time to be taking days off for you right now."

I sat up now, gripping the grey quilts and sheets in my hands. I saw I was wearing my old Winnepeg Jets t-shirt.

"Where is this?" I wondered aloud.

"It's Thursday, it's Seven-Thirty A.M., and we're both on our way to being late for work!" the woman said behind me.

I now slowly turned to face her. "Melanie . . ." I said with shock.

"That's my name, genius," the redheaded woman snapped back sarcastically, wearing her own grey t-shirt emblazoned with a large bald eagle poised with wings spread over an Earth centred on the North American continent and dark blue lounge pants with white stars on them. "Now get going! No time for coffee in bed this morning. I'm off to the shower. You're on your own. Use the guest bathroom."

"Y-You want to shower together? Speed things up?" I suggested apologetically.

"Now where the heck did you get an idea like that?" she replied. "_Shower_ together? You know we've never done such a thing, at least since our honeymoon years ago. Geez, what a fairy tale fantasy that was! Now get going!"

I sat up for a moment longer in bed, bewildered. Suddenly I had never felt so alone or bereft in my life. This didn't feel real. It couldn't be. I had just been somewhere else—someplace completely different, feeling completely different.

"Get your rear out of bed and down the hall! NOW!" I heard through the master bathroom door. "I know you, Lance!"

I now felt an overwhelming sadness. I didn't belong here. Yet here I was, trapped. I looked with numb disbelief down at the covers and around the room again. What was going on here? What the _hell_ was going on?

"_MOVE_, genius!" I now heard as the bathroom door to the bedroom burst open.

"Something's happened . . ." I struggled to say.

"Yeah, I managed to wake you up!" Melanie retorted.

"Don't you care about me . . . when I feel something?" I sadly wondered.

"Not this morning!" she replied, slamming the door again.

A bleak depression began settling upon me. I had felt, even known, both love and a life elsewhere. But now, I was here. It felt like I had never left . . . yet I knew, I _knew_, I had been somewhere else. I opened the drawer in the nightstand on my side of the bed. There it was inside—the Colt pistol I was required to keep near me, due to my classified work and clearance. It was there for me to protect myself with, should the need ever arise. This morning though, I began to contemplate putting it to an entirely different use. Something stopped me from thinking about that further however.

Feeling deeply confused, but in a setting that was still all too familiar, I dragged myself out of bed to my feet, stroking that plush bed and dark grey quilting one more time. It felt like my one comfort here, despite whom I was sharing it with.

_No wonder I don't want to get out of bed here to face this every day_, I sighed in my mind as I then trudged off out of the bedroom and down the hall to the other bathroom for my shower. I could now recall, seemingly eons ago though, that this was not the first time I had done this—gone down the hall to take my shower. I turned on the hot water in this other bathroom, shed my ratty old t-shirt and shorts and stepped under the steamy streams, closing the shower curtain.

I leaned forward, resting my forehead against the shower tiles as I allowed the warm water to begin soothing and comforting me. "Su— . . . Ro— . . ." I said. They were names on the tip of my tongue, but I could not speak or remember them now. My hands seemed to search on their own among the light blue tiles and white grout, almost for a secret button, an exit from this hell where I was.

"Someone help me . . . please," I whispered with tears in my eyes, before I closed them. Somewhere within, I found a will to just pick up the washcloth and the soap, and begin washing myself. It felt like I had been pushing myself through this hell for years as I proceeded to wash first my face, then my neck and arms. As I washed my chest and back, I glanced past the edge of the shower curtain, at the dark blue towel on the chrome rack nearby. Then I looked up at the rail holding the shower curtain.

_It would never hold your weight long enough,_ my analytical mind quickly dismissed. But living like this . . . it felt like death already, because I knew there was, even had been, something better for me. Not wanting to be yelled at yet again though, I forced myself to speed up, quickly scrubbing my legs and feet, and then shampooing my tussled, wavy brown hair. For an instant, I could remember, even feel, someone else's hands doing this for me—but they weren't Melanie's. These hands . . . they loved me, and I could remember treasuring them and the feel of them.

"You _still_ in the shower?" I heard with a shock, almost cringing like I'd been whipped.

"Amost done," I said quickly rinsing myself.

"We'll you've had another phone call," Melanie continued, "on our secure line. The lab director said the President's National Security Advisor will be arriving to meet with you at the lab, at Nine."

"Not the President?" I wondered as I turned off the shower.

"Boy, you do have dreams and delusions of grandeur, don't you?" she replied. "Whatever it is he wants, just don't screw it up."

"It'll be about Lazarus," I sighed, reaching beyond the shower curtain to grab the towel.

"We're not authorized to talk about that at home, remember?" Melanie chided me. "Besides, I've been told by my DARPA office manager to expect to receive a visit from the Advisor as well between 11 A.M. and Noon. You just get to see him first. Lucky you."

"Yeah," I sighed aloud as I dried myself in the shower tub, "lucky me."

"Just don't talk to him about the moral implications of Lazarus, okay?" she said as I could hear her turning to leave.

"You and I are supposedly Christian," I noted. "Yet we shouldn't be concerned about making the destruction of the world possibly more feasible and acceptable because I've discovered a way some of us could survive in it?"

"This is about us versus the Soviets," she said, "with the possible help and protection of a tool that has literally dropped out of heaven. It could have landed over in Russia, then we wouldn't know about it until after the first bombs hit our cities, if ever. I'd say God is on our side with this one. This is your first research project that's actually worked however, and is starting to give us a decent living, even some prestige. Just don't screw it up now."

She then left, slamming the bathroom door. Not a hug or a kiss, or even a 'see ya later'. It felt like I had been rarely getting those from her anyway. But I could sense that I had been getting them from somewhere.

Then I remembered. I dashed for the door. "You want me to give our kid breakfast?" I called down the hall.

"What kid?" she replied from the doorway to the garage now. "Boy you have been out of it! And that hurts, too. You know I don't like to be reminded about the miscarriage of our son."

"Miscarriage?" I quietly wondered. "Ron . . ." I then murmured, dropping my head as I stood just beyond the bathroom door. I could have sworn I once handed him a stuffed animal though, a black one.

As Melanie left for her car in the garage, I turned, leaning my bare back against the pastel blue hallway wall, staring up at the small light globe attached to the white ceiling. I didn't want to go to work today, having bad feelings about even the prospect of meeting with the National Security Advisor. The President was supposed to be dealing with this, and me, himself. I should be going to Washington, not just to my lab. Heck, I didn't want to be living this life today. Everything was just screaming 'wrong' inside me. I wanted love, I wanted peace, I wanted harmony . . . and I had those things! I _had_ them! Someplace.

Once again though, I somehow forced myself to move. The next thing I knew, I was shaved with my hair combed, and dressed in a longsleeve dark blue shirt, with a burgundy tie and dark grey slacks. My ID badge was clipped to my light grey tweed sportcoat, and I had a peanut butter and chocolate chip granola bar, still in its wrapper, along with a small bottle of orange juice in one hand, and a briefcase in the other as I walked to my car, a silver Saab sedan, in a tidy garage. I now remembered that this Swedish car with its black leather interior was one indulgence I had fought to get for myself. Scandinavia . . . Vikings . . . that place and past were calling to me. I placed my briefcase on the hood of my car and opened it. There it was, front and centre on top of my other files and paperwork . . . the brochure from the Drager Vertshus in Norway, with a letter, written to me personally from the innkeeper no less, folded inside it. Even though I couldn't remember receiving it, somehow I knew it would be there, like a lifeline. I was going to get myself there, one day.

I then glanced out the wide garage door that Melanie had left open after she departed, perhaps as one kindness towards me . . . but not likely. I now saw a dark blue sedan with two people in it parked across the curving suburban street framed by nicely mown lawns and trimmed shrubs, a couple houses away. While it felt quite familiar being watched and tailed by agents of one security detail or another, I recalled they had usually been men by themselves. This time, a blonde-haired man and a blonde woman were watching me.

Something felt different about these two though . . . something good. I decided to leave my briefcase and pre-packaged breakfast on the hood of my car, as the morning newspaper was still on my short, concrete driveway anyway. There was something else there, too—a discarded baseball, likely from a neighbour kid. I knew that security people weren't supposed to talk to me, or even get out of their car however, unless . . .

Before I knew it, I was slipping—deliberately—on that ball, and falling onto my back on the hard, concrete driveway.

"Are you alright?" I soon heard as I shifted my eyes from looking up at the blue morning sky, towards what I could only describe as a blonde angel in a dark business suit.

"Ro— . . . ?" I tried to say, finding myself surprisingly winded from my little stunt.

"You know we're not supposed to be doing this," the man next to this woman said to her with an accent.

"I know," she replied, glancing at him before returning her attention to me as she placed a hand under my head. "Just rest for a moment, Doctor Hyse. Catch your breath."

"N-Not American," I struggled to say.

"We are friends," she gently assured me. "Not Russian though, so don't worry about that—just friends, okay? We are looking out for you."

"First time I've been cared for, in a while," I managed to half-smile, now beginning to breathe easier.

"I am sorry to hear that," this sweet woman said, caressing my face with her other hand now. "I know, but I am still sorry to hear it."

"You know?" I wondered.

"Roana," the man cautioned.

"Oleg, I know what I am doing," the woman countermanded.

"Roana . . . Oleg . . ." I stammered, "I . . . I know you, somehow."

"We have never met before," the woman said. "But I hope, even expect we will again. We are looking out for you, okay? We're your guardians."

"Guardians . . ." I said as she held me, almost seizing on that familiar word.

"You have to get to work though," she continued. "We cannot interfere with that."

"I wish you would," I sighed as the two of them now helped me to sit up.

This beautiful blonde woman, her hair drawn back into a single, neat ponytail, smiled such a warm, wonderful smile at me now. It felt like nothing less than the kindest smile from heaven itself I could have asked for, bringing a couple tears to my eyes.

"Roana," the suited man cautioned, looking elsewhere. "We must go."

"Don't," I asked, "don't go."

"We will be around, watching out for you," the woman assured. "I promise."

I grabbed her hand before it slipped beyond my reach, holding it tightly.

"I know," she then said. "I know what you are going through. I have been seeing at times how you are treated."

"How?" I asked.

"We have been watching you for some time, since we discovered you," she replied. "You are important to us, in a good way, more than one actually. You came from us, generations ago."

"Help me," I couldn't resist saying.

"I am," she assured, "and I will do more, soon. Hang on, Lance . . . just hang on, alright?"

"Roana, we must go, now," her companion noted protectively, looking on in the distance. "I hear another car coming."

"I care for you, Lance," she said as she was forcefully parted from my grasp. "Do not forget that."

It seemed like I was losing the first hope and kindness I had experienced in what was feeling like a very bleak life as the two of them rapidly got back into their car and then took off, while I was still sitting upright on my driveway. Sure enough another car soon came, a harder-edged black Ford sedan this time, stopping in front of me. Its passenger window lowered.

"You okay, sir?" the dark-haired, suited man inside wearing sunglasses asked.

"Yes, I'm fine," I said now rising to my feet, basically knowing somehow that he was part of the normal NASA security that surrounded me at times. "Just a stupid slip on a kid's baseball while I was getting my paper here."

"Would you like a ride this morning, sir?" he then asked.

"No," I declined, rising to my feet, "I'll drive myself."

"Then allow me to escort you, sir, so you won't be late for your meeting," he offered.

"That's on the list, is it?" I queried.

"Yes it is, sir," he replied. "Let's go. Just remember to use your lights and siren as well, so no one else pulls you over as you speed behind me."

"Yeah . . . right," I slowly agreed, looking back at my silver sedan now.

— — — — —

Soon enough, I was using the flashing red and blue lights and siren my car was equipped with, hidden in its front grill, as I followed my security escort at speed to my NASA lab at the Johnson Space Center on the southeast outskirts of Houston. As we got off the Interstate 45 freeway and made a turn through stopped traffic though, I glanced ever so briefly off to my left . . . and there, inside a car in that traffic was the blonde woman, Roana—keeping an eye on me, just as she had promised. That brought a smile to my face, the first one I could remember having all day so far, as I looked ahead and continued following my escort.

A couple miles further, we were arriving at the lab complex, and I parked in my sedan in its reserved parking spot with my name posted on a sign, right next to the lab director's spot and the entrance to the building. Strangely, the lab director, my boss, was waiting just past the security checkpoint in the lobby as I entered and flashed my ID badge to the armed guards on duty. Only slightly older than myself, nearing forty he was already balding with a paunch though, and wore a white, short-sleeved shirt with a plastic pocket protector festooned with pens, and a loud, multi-coloured tie that went out with the Sixties. While I remembered counting him as a good friend, he was the model of an organization-bound science nerd that even I detested. And yet I was one, too, really. But at least I prided myself in dressing like a more normal outsider.

"The Advisor is already here," my director boss and friend said quietly to me. "He's waiting for you in our secure conference room, right over there."

"Are you joining in?" I asked as we walked further along the corridor.

"No," he replied, "this is apparently a 'need to know' matter between him and yourself alone." He then just gestured with a hand towards the closed conference room door. This was not feeling good.

I opened the door and went in.

"Doctor Hyse," the National Security Advisor greeted me, as I entered the room. His mixed black and silver hair was slicked back, and he wore a dark, pinstriped suit with a red tie and perfectly folded red handkerchief in the suit pocket. "Close the door would you?" he added, looking at me over his rimless glasses.

"Of course," I replied, doing as he asked.

"Have a seat," he continued, gesturing across the table to a chair near where I was.

"Thank you," I accepted nervously.

"I'll get right to the point," he noted. "We want to thank you for all the work you've done on Lazarus. We can't tell you how important it is now to the future security of our country . . ."

Here it came.

"But we no longer feel NASA is the right agency to be conducting this research," the advisor said.

"So where am I being transferred to?" I interrupted.

"You're not," he replied to my sudden chill and shock. "Lazarus is being transferred to DARPA, but you're staying here, continuing your other work with NASA."

"DARPA?" I wondered incredulously. "You mean my wife—?"

"I am not authorized to say," he replied, cutting me off, "and neither is she. So do not ask her. As you've been told before, Lazarus is an off-limits topic anywhere outside of authorized and secure facilities."

"But she doesn't know molecular biology . . . all the nuances of the protein sequences I've been working with!" I protested. "The work's not finished yet!" I remembered it was, actually. But I had been hesitating for weeks, even months, about whether to allow it to be the success it was, or make it look like a failure, and perhaps save the world from an armageddon that some might find all too tempting if Lazarus was available for actual use. "I was supposed to go to Washington to brief the President myself when it was!" I added.

"That is no longer your concern, Doctor Hyse," the advisor coolly noted. "I remind you that this is an ultra classified matter," he then said, rising his feet again. "You are to talk about it with no one else. Just sign these specimen and material transfer authorizations, please."

"I want to see the President," I responded, rising to my own feet.

"I'm afraid that's not possible, Doctor," he replied. "Sign these, or I will have to place you under arrest."

"No," I flatly responded.

"Doctor," the Advisor said, now drawing and pointing a gun at me, "you are about to commit a capital breach against National Security, for which you can be executed, immediately, without trial at this level because there is no judge that would be cleared high enough to hear it. No questions will be asked if I am the only one of us to walk out of here. Are you sure you want to do this?"

_It's the new President,_ I silently realized to myself looking down, not daring to say a thing now. _Just as I had feared._ Even if I was carrying my own pistol, which I had forgotten to holster and strap on in my hurry this morning, I knew I was cornered now. He was right. The Advisor could indeed walk out of the room, and the complex, having shot me. But I could not do the same to him, under any circumstances, and expect to walk out alive. No matter what though, the transfer of Lazarus would proceed. My signatures would make things easier, but really, they were just a formality.

I sat down, utterly in shock. I knew I was being broken, my career ending, right before my eyes. With Lazarus being transferred to DARPA, short for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, I knew that Melanie was usurping me, and would in all likelihood leave me as well. She, and everyone else here, had gotten what they wanted from me. I had woken up in hell this morning . . . and now, it was even worse.

Still standing, the Advisor now reholstered his gun inside his jacket, handing me a pen from one of its pockets instead. I then proceeded to meekly sign the requested transfer documents. I was numb, completely numb.

"Thank you, Doctor," the advisor then said, tucking the signed documents into his black leather portfolio, embossed with a large Presidential seal. "You may go now. I have some calls to make from in here. Close the door behind you, please. And remember, this remains an ultra classified matter."

Feeling beaten and defeated, I just did as he asked now, walking back out into the hallway and closing the door behind me.

"Lance," the lab director said, coming up beside me as I just drifted down the corridor now, crowded with other lab staff, "why don't you take the rest of the day off? You've been working hard, you've earned it."

"I thought you said this was a 'need to know' that you weren't involved with," I quietly responded back to him.

"You'll have work to continue with here," he assured, placing his hand on my shoulder, "when you come back. Just take the day off now."

I left my boss behind as I silently walked back through the security checkpoint and out of the building into the bright Texas sunshine. I had never felt so dark though, so utterly crushed. I could see Lazarus being blindly duplicated, then field tested in Nevada at our existing nuclear test range, and finally given to our frontline troops in Central Europe, South Korea and likely elsewhere as well. That just wasn't something I wanted to stick around for.

I got into my car, drove out of the Space Center, taking a right onto the NASA Parkway and blindly picked the first seedy roadside dive bar I saw. I had never gotten really drunk in my life, even only sipping at the fraternity 'keggers' I was invited to in college. But for what I now wanted to do next, I needed to get drunk.

Once I walked inside, sure enough, the place reeked of booze and cigarette smoke, the country music on the jukebox was loud, and the booth seats were torn. "Whiskey, straight, make it a double," I said, balancing on a rickety stool at the bar, to a stocky, hairy bartender wearing a tanktop t-shirt that looked like it had never even seen a washing machine. This whole world now just seemed to be serving to grind me down, all the way. Any hell of legend or the imagination could not be much worse than this. Even at this bar though, I couldn't find myself stomaching more than two stiff whiskeys. It just didn't seem to be in my nature somehow, at least without lots of camaraderie and encouragement. I was just going to have to face this next part fairly sober.

Deciding to simply pay my tab and leave, I encountered my blonde angel and her suited companion once more outside the tavern's door.

"Lance . . ." she said, seemingly with incredible understanding, "why don't you come with us? Let's talk, huh?"

With what I knew was about to be done with Lazarus, the world was without hope to me now. I personally felt ashamed, worthless . . . certainly not worthy of this angelic woman in front of me.

"You don't understand," I quietly said just shaking my head. "They'll blow it all up now . . . it's not worth being here. I'm too late . . . missed my chance to change it," I mumbled in a growing panic, brushing her aside as I headed back to my car.

"Lance!" she called after me as I got into my car, shutting the door, and shutting out the sound of her sweet, soothing voice.

"Not for me," I said as I now started the car's engine, backing hard out of my parking spot before jamming the gear into first and then gunning it out of the gravel parking lot and back onto the secondary highway leading me further southwest, out of town.

I was looking for just one thing now as I drove . . . but to my frustration amid this flat, bushy terrain, I wasn't finding it. I didn't see the car Roana was in amid the several cars following me, but I knew she and Oleg would be back there. I just shifted into fifth gear, gunning the engine some more and made the car do what it was meant to—speed.

As I gained some distance from the cars following me, I knew before long I would also likely be gaining the attention of a Texas Ranger in a patrol car. I could have turned on my lights and siren, I suppose, but I was just drunk and panicked enough to not be thinking clearly anymore. Noticing a good-sized gap among the oncoming traffic ahead of me, "It's now or never," I said.

_Hang on, Lance,_ I heard Roana say in my mind again. _Just hang on._

A good part of me wanted to. But just as I had been in the conference room a short while ago, I was overruled . . . by the hopeless and dispirited rest of me.

"I'm sorry, Roana . . ." I said as I gave the steering wheel a hard turn to the right, and everything began spinning, before things seemed to settle . . . upside down.

— — — — —

I hadn't succeeded in what I wanted to do after all. I was still here—very hurt, but still here. It seems that I couldn't escape this hell now even through death. Within a moment, two suited figures were kneeling at the inverted passenger window of my car amid some tall bushes away from the highway. I saw a metal bar being briefly shown at the window, and I knew enough to look away.

The safety glass of the window was soon broken and being peeled out of the way by leather-gloved hands, before my friend, Roana, was crawling into the upside down car, cradling my shoulders and head while working to unbuckle the seatbelt that was still holding me. I then found myself falling, almost right onto her, as I was released from my driver's seat.

"It's okay," she assured, grabbing me tightly and beginning to drag me out of the car. "We have you now, and I'm not letting go."

I weakly glanced up at her, smiling. She glanced at me, too, smiling, as we emerged out of the car into the daylight again.

"Lance," she said, "we want to take care of you from here, alright? Would you be okay in coming with us now?"

"Take me . . ." I mumbled, feeling truly rescued now, from everything.

"Plant the bone fragments," she instructed to her companion, "and then rig the car for detonation."

"But Roana," her companion seemed to protest.

"We're taking him, Oleg!" she ordered.

"Já frú," he then seemed to accept, as they each took one side of me and moved me into the back seat of their car. Roana then rested my head on her lap as Oleg closed the door at my feet and rushed towards the trunk of their car, presumably to carry out her orders.

"Your life here is over now, alright?" she soothed, caressing my face.

"Rescued . . ." I mumbled with tearful relief and a smile.

"Yes," she soothed, "you are rescued. Rest now, Lance. You will be somewhere else, soon, and we will take care of everything."

"You be there?" I quietly wondered.

"Always now, Lance," she assured as I moved my right hand to join hers against my cheek. "Always . . ."

I now closed my eyes and relaxed completely, letting go of everything . . .

— — — — —

I felt myself breathing calmly. This presence, this wonderful, unclothed, feminine presence was laying close against me, all along my left side as I began waking up.

I wasn't wearing a t-shirt this time, just seeming to be covered by a loose collection of sheepskins and primitive quilts. Rafters, wooden rafters, were above me, and large black masses, breathing ones, were on my right side.

"Casts," I mumbled, raising my right arm and seeing it encased in one as I felt another on my right leg as well. "Where am I?"

"You're home," a familiar sweet voice sighed as her body nestled even closer against mine.

"Car wreck . . ." I said, trying to reconcile everything.

"It wasn't a car wreck, my love," this woman smiled next to me, lazily giving my cheek a kiss now, "you and Substance crashed in the snow, remember?"

"Roana?" I asked, turning my head until our eyes met.

"I'm here, Lance," this angelic woman assured, "right here, with you. What's wrong?" she then asked, seeing the confusion in my eyes.

"I was . . . somewhere else," I struggled to say as a different set of memories, almost two competing sets, now flooded into my mind.

"Tell me about it," Roana soothed, caressing my face, neck, even chest with her free left hand.

"You care?" I wondered. "You want to know something that may be completely crazy?"

"Yes," she warmly assured, continuing to soothe me with both her voice and gestures, "it's what love is . . . just wanting to know whatever is on a mate's mind, especially when they're troubled."

I just looked up at the wooden rafters, half laughing, half crying.

"What is it?" Roana gently asked.

"It feels like I've just been back in hell," I said, "in my life in Texas. It was like I had never left there."

Roana silently moved to embrace my whole body with hers. "_That_ would be scary," she agreed.

I closed my eyes as I now held her amid our Medieval bedding and covers, kissing her forehead as she nestled it against my chin and neck, relishing and being so thankful for it all . . . for being simply understood, and loved.

"Tell me about it," she invited.

"We shouldn't be up, doing something?" I wondered.

"No," Roana warmly answered. "It's winter," she said almost with a laugh, "and you and Substance are both laid up with broken bones. This is our time now, for just us, to do and deal with whatever is on our hearts . . . starting with yours today. So talk, my sir; or do you want me to charm, even ravish it out of you?"

"You would?" I asked, still scarcely believing all I was hearing and experiencing.

Roana now just rolled me onto my back, spreading herself possessively over me, and giving me a powerful, even fierce kiss.

"Would you like more convincing?" she then paused to ask. "Because you just don't want to mess with a determined Viking, especially this one."

"Viking . . ." I sighed, now treasuring that word as well as her.

"Were you this difficult in your nightmare, too?" Roana then wondered, fortunately with another smile.

"I woke up, experiencing a continuation of my life over there, in Texas," I said, looking into Roana's kind and loving eyes. "It seemed as real as this, but there was no kindness, no love, no support. Just a grinding daily existence where the only value I seemed to have with those around me was for what I had finally discovered. And today, even that was seeming to be taken away from me. A presidential advisor was transferring Lazarus out of my control and into my wife's defence research agency. I couldn't stop it, and found myself not wanting to live after that, fearing all that could likely happen."

"I wish I could have been there for you, Lance," Roana gently said, rolling us onto our sides again as we maintained our shared gaze, "right at your side."

"You were, in a way," I sighed. "You and Oleg seemed to be monitoring and tailing me, from a car . . . both of you wearing suits of all things. I deliberately slipped and fell onto my back to draw you to me in my driveway at home. You helped me up, reassuring me that you were watching out for me. Then you met me again as I was coming out of a seedy tavern, having tried unsuccessfully to make myself drunk after being informed at work that Lazarus was being taken away from me. But things had gone too far at that point. I no longer could stand living, feeling even the world was on its way towards ending. I just brushed past you as you invited me to talk, got in my car, sped off . . . and crashed it."

"Lance . . ." she sighed, holding me tighter once more.

"I survived rolling the car somehow though," I continued. "You rescued me yourself, pulling me out. You told Oleg that you were taking me now, ordering him to blow up my car and fake my death. You even asked me if that was okay. I just accepted it all with a smile . . . fading out there, and then waking up here, thinking I was still in that life, before I started remembering everything here. The two lives—they seem the same somehow."

"Life, and Spirit . . . they will not be denied," Substance now chimed in next to us. "It is what you each have chosen, but it does not have to happen just one way."

"You mean that was not just a dream, a nightmare?" I asked, looking at the large being I now recognized as my dragon companion, as Roana relaxed against me, listening as well.

"I been developing powerful meditations," Substance continued. "It's how I keep sane in my blindness, here anyway. I learn how to concentrate, pierce the veil of life, even between lives . . . to occupy myself with them while rest of you were gone from station during days, starting with that one day I asked to be left alone. I found I could go above, and then into several other lives. In lives, if I live just in caves, I see. But if I help others, get involved with humans, live with you, I go blind. It just keeps happening—different ways, different accidents or diseases. But it keeps happening. It has helped me to accept blindness though. I love Rökkr, you, this family. This what I want. Love we share here . . . it's powerful, and wonderful."

I reached up to touch my dragon, even though it was little more than brushing my arm cast and exposed fingers against her.

"I normally have not done it at night when you with me, but last night I must have," Substance continued. "Touching me, you must have been carried to your own alternate life, one where a different choice had been made."

"Melanie not divorcing me," I realized. "I would have stuck with her, our life there, right until death . . . or until I was taken away. It's just what marriage always meant to me."

"Lance," Roana whispered, kissing my cheek warmly.

"Going unconscious here allows us to go elsewhere; going unconscious there brings us back across veil," Substance resumed next to us. "It's what I experienced. I won't do it again though when you all around me, for rest of winter now. You in life you want, and I realize so am I."

"So there isn't one life where we're together, as a family, and you see?" I asked.

"Haven't found one yet," my dragon simply replied, "Our love special. My blindness part of that. I see you, in my memories . . . and again, after this life."

"You are truly choosing it now, aren't you?" I gently asked as I caressed her with my fingers and plaster-encased right arm.

"Yes," she replied, seeming to treasure the touch I could give her. "I am."

"Substance, would you take me to an alternate life?" Roana now asked beside me.

"After what I've been through, why on Earth would you want to do that?" I wondered, turning back towards my mate.

"Because I want a love and appreciation for you, and what we share, as you seem to have for me now," she replied.

"You want to find him again," Substance replied knowingly beside us. "Fall in love again."

"What if I do?" my mate confessed nestled beside me.

"Once wasn't enough for you, eh?" I smiled.

"Never enough," she confirmed with a smile and a kiss as well. "Besides, I don't remember it anyway, remember?"

"Substance," I said without taking my eyes off Roana, "take us back, into another life. I would go through even hell, over and over again, for this woman."

"Lance . . ." my mate sighed, embracing me tightly as I embraced her.

"It not happen on command," my dragon noted, "or when awake. Mind has to be just right, receptive to connection, open to passage. Getting myself there hard enough. Getting all three of us there, it would be miracle."

"What could I do then to keep you here, in this life, Roana?" I wondered with a sigh, now cradling and rocking her slightly against me in our wonderfully primitive bedding.

"Not rub your casts against me for one thing," she replied. "Your arm cast against my bare back is scratching me."

"Sorry," I apologised, quickly moving my broken right arm off of her.

"Let's just tuck a sheepskin between us back there, okay?" she smiled, pulling one of the skins higher over her side and back. "I want your arm there, too though," Roana added, kissing me.

"Do you know how wonderful you are?" I sighed. "Compared with anything, and anyone, I've known?"

"Keep telling me," my mate smiled again. "We have a long winter ahead of us now, and little else to do but this . . . just this."

"Could get kind of repetitive," I cautioned.

"It's better than hell, don't you think?" she gently countered with her arms draped around me.

"You got me there," I sighed, my smile never having left my face. "But," I then said, "there is one thing I can remember now wanting to start our winter off right here . . . a surprise for you. Would you reach for that small leather pouch hanging from the nail on that beam beyond our pillows there?"

"Surprise?" she said, intrigued, as she rose slightly, reaching for that pouch beyond our heads on the wall. "This might be worth sticking around in this life for after all."

"It had better be," I quipped, now grabbing Roana tightly with just my left arm and causing her to fall on top of me, even on my head as we both collapsed into laughter, rolling together in the bedding a bit. Bumping up against our dragons, I briefly looked beside us. All three of them seemed to just be peacefully dozing, with Rökkr and Spring, perhaps even Substance, keeping an eye warmly and lovingly cracked open on Roana and I.

"I'm sorry," I said to them, "for bumping you all."

"Keep going," Substance replied. "I enjoy hearing and feeling it."

Rökkr now took that as a cue to start gently gnawing on his mate's neck again, even though both of them knew they couldn't take it any further for the time being, until Substance's wings were healed.

I then looked at my dragon son wedged between Substance on one side, and Roana and I on the other. "I'm sorry, Spring," I just wound up saying to him, forgetting to include the Norse. I guess I was still 'coming back' from Texas.

"Gooooodd," he tried to say, practicing his English as he raised his black head a little. "Surrrrrpprrrriizzzze," he then struggled to add. I guess even he wanted to see what was in that small pouch.

"Alright," I accepted as the entire family now seemed to give me their attention. "Roana, could you help me sit up please?"

As my mate helped me rise up, positioning pillows behind me, I noticed our new elderly housemate, Tana, and her Zippleback, working away in the cooking area, seemingly as unobtrusively and quietly as possible. "Tana, og . . ." I called, unable to remember the dragon's name, " . . . k-koma hér," I then stammered. "Sorry, it's almost like I've forgotten Norse here this morning."

"You really have been somewhere else," Roana noted next to me.

"The difference though," I sighed with a tear in my eye, "is that you accept and support me in dealing with it here. I wasn't receiving this over there. Boy am I glad I'm not in that life in Texas now . . . so very, very glad."

"Tell you what," my mate offered, snuggling herself next to me, "let's not send you back there for any more explorations. I'll just keep falling in love with you here, okay?"

"That is one thing I want us to do with what I'm about to share here," I said, now shifting to take that small pouch Roana was holding into my left hand as I relaxed against the large pillows she had arranged for me. "I was saving this for our Mating Feast, in Old Berk," I noted as we all, even Tana and her Zippleback, now looked at the pouch I held in my good hand. "But you know . . . I want you to have another memory back, now. I don't want you to have to wait until next spring for it, especially with all the crazy stuff that seems to keep happening to us, especially to me here. Hold out your left hand," I invited to Roana.

I then tipped the contents of the small pouch into her hand . . . two gold rings, comprised of two entwined dragons on each ring, with one ring being slightly larger than the other.

"You had these rings made," I said, "the morning after we had mated, after you had introduced me to how we deal with trespassers in Berk, even inviting me to inject one of them. They were two Australian or New Zealander men, who had as usual kayaked to our now former south beach and were climbing the mountains. After you and I had each injected one of them, and seen them strapped down and flown away on the Night Furies that had caught them . . . you had us stop by the metalsmith, and place an order for these two rings, before we went south that day back to your uncle's inn, to collect my belongings and fake my death . . . and your memory of us was taken from you."

I paused, tearing up for a moment, as Roana drew herself even closer against me.

"With everything that's happened since that day," I continued, "I had forgotten about these for a while. I want to appologise to you, Roana—both to who you were, and to who you are now—for forgetting something as important as this, even for a moment. The metalsmith had to finally come and tap me on the shoulder one day a couple weeks later, during the summer before the battle, one day when you and I were apart in the village here, and give these to me, in this pouch. I was still just learning Norse, and tried to offer some sort of exchange. I pointed to this pouch and the rings, then making hammering and sawing motions with one hand off to the side before pointing to myself. He just waived me off though, patting me on the shoulder, letting me know he didn't want a thing from me. I silently nodded before he embraced me, and we parted.

"Once I had them though, these rings that you had designed and ordered, they were so special," I sniffed. "I wanted to save them for the public Mating Feast Chief Roald continued to promise we would have. That feast still hasn't happened yet. But we, you and I, and our family . . . we've been through so much, that I wanted to share them, even marry you again, the first day of winter, once we were all settled back inside this home, where we really belong. So, Roana," I said as both she and I broke down in tears of unimaginable joy, " . . . would you marry me, right now, even again?"

The woman I so deeply loved couldn't even get the words out of her mouth at first as she collapsed, weeping against me while I held her so tightly, broken arm and all.

"Yes . . ." she finally whispered, burying her face against my bare neck and shoulder. "Yes . . ."

"Still want to go and fall in love all over again in Texas?" I wondered with a smile.

She laughed so wonderfully against me amid her tears. I did, too.

"No," she finally said. "Just marry me here, now, however you like."

"Mating's better though, just as you've said," I warmly encouraged.

"Marry me," she replied however. "I want that, too, between us . . . just to be doubly sure."

"Well," I said, "put the rings down on our shared lap here . . . and I will try and pick one up with my right hand, because I just can't let go of you now with my good left arm."

Roana shifted and curled herself fully now into my lap amid our quilts and sheepskins. This wasn't the big, public ceremony I had been thinking of with these rings. There was no fancy garb, not even festive surroundings that would seem to make for the memories I originally wanted her to have when she saw these legacies of her past, our past. Yet it all felt so appropriate . . . so 'Winter in Berk', and so reflective of the love she and I shared.

As Rökkr, Substance, and Spring, along with Tana and her Zippleback, all watched around us, I angled my right arm, despite the cast running from my palm past my elbow, and managed to pick up the smaller of the two rings between my exposed thumb and first two fingers.

"With this ring," I said, now angling that right hand and arm towards Roana's left hand as she moved it to meet me halfway, slipping her third finger inside that ring, "I take thee, Roana, as my wedded wife, and deepest mate; to have and to hold, for richer for poorer, in peace and in battle, together and apart . . . no matter what we might have to do to find each other, over and over again . . ."

She broke down laughing against my neck with that one, as her finger remained poised in that ring while I continued to hold it.

" . . . Now, and forever," I continued while she raised her head to look at me again. "You are my One. I know that now . . . I know it. The one I will see, find, and love through lifetimes and eternity. I didn't think such a thing was possible, certainly amid my previous life in Texas. But even there, you were finding me, just as you have told me here that you would be if it was necessary. You have kept your word to me, across lives, across even dimensions. Now, I give you my word, my unbreakable pledge, bond and promise of love, to keep deep within your heart, soul and spirit . . . forever."

I now just allowed silence to just be among us. Roana moved to share a gentle first kiss with me before her left hand, now with its gold ring of dragons firmly on it, picked up the gold ring meant for me.

"I don't think this moment, this memory," she then began, "would be possible for us now, if I hadn't lost what I have. I am learning with you, perhaps again, that Love and Spirit find a way. They always do. It has been a hard path for each of us to get here. But each of us brings that much more appreciation and love for the other when we do meet. This feels like a happy reconnection, and reunion, to me now, more than it does a first time. Maybe we are cheating, getting a little help from our dragons, to see beyond the veil of this life. Maybe we, you and I, are doing this a hundred different ways, in either the same or a hundred different places. But me? Now? I choose this place, and this life. But I will always, _always_, choose you.

"So," she continued, now twisting herself and bringing my left arm further around her side with her left hand, positioning my left hand while starting to place the ring on my third finger with her right hand, "I now claim you—body, soul and spirit—as my husband, my mate, and my One as well. I do not care what circumstances we find ourselves in, as I now know they will be right for the love we want to experience together. Through busyness, battle, or calm . . . I have been discovering love with you, and I never want to stop. Even in old age, even if you die first, I will be sustained by our love. So may it continue between us, even begin anew, this day, right now. I love you, Lance Ýsa Hyse."

"And I love you, Roana Johannsen Ýsa . . ." I replied as we moved to kiss.

"Throw Hyse in there, too," she invited just before our lips met, amid a pair of human hands clapping and dragon roars around us.

"Misses Hyse," I sighed as Roana and I kissed fervently and held each other tightly.

"Now I really feel like I own you," my new wife, as well as mate, sighed.

"Just not like I was owned in Texas . . . please?" I requested.

"Own me, too," she invited as we continued kissing, "just claim me as yours. Keeps things in balance that way. That's probably one thing that went wrong for you over there."

"Alright," I accepted, "I own you, too, Roana."

"There you go," she encouraged with a sigh as we now collapsed into our bedding.

— — — — —

I had gone from hell to heaven that morning, seemingly in an instant . . . two awakenings that were so very different from one another. Callousness and sadness seemed to feed on each other in one life, dragging my former wife and I down there; while kindness, supportive caring, and unconditional love seemed to carry my new wife and I towards unbelievable joy here, amid seemingly much simpler, even primitive, circumstances.

Something had happened though. A new fusing felt like it had occurred inside me, giving me an unbelievable faith, and strength.

I could even face my life in Texas now, if I ever found myself waking up in it again.


	35. Chapter 35

_Author's Note_

_I know . . . it's been four months, all through the summer of 2012, right through a first anniversary for this story since it began, and yet no word from Lance and his world._

_Truth is I've been writing a second full-length original motion picture screenplay, a science fiction one without space battles amazingly, and even made a trip to Northern California to market both this and my first historical fantasy screenplay. No word back yet however. I've also been hurriedly writing a few original short stories for fun and prizes in contests in recent weeks, as well as doing some complicated technical writing and interpretation, and starting another screenplay._

_But enough readers have been quietly tapping me on the shoulder through private messages that I felt I really should return to the saga here. So with other things and deadlines finally seeming to quiet down for the moment, I have been working on the next two chapters of 'Legacy of Myth' this past week._

_While I had wanted to get this out at the beginning of the American Labor Day holiday weekend, I am pleased to now, and finally, present the next chapter of Lance's life in New Berk . . ._

— _Norwesterner_

* * *

><p>I originally travelled to the Drager Vertshus months, seemingly eons, ago, in search of a long, quiet vacation and sabbatical. But meeting Roana and discovering that dragons existed had kind of thrown all that out the window . . . or rather out the door, as Berker houses tended not to have much in the way of windows.<p>

Now however, I was catching up on that sabbatical . . . whether I liked it or not. I was waited on hand and foot without having to do a thing. My sole, and enforced, assignment was to rest and allow my broken right leg and arm to heal—not that almost constant near-arctic snowstorms were much of a reason to go outside anyway as I woke up another morning . . . or midday, as it turned out.

When my eyes opened, I saw Rökkr and Spring busy bringing frozen blocks or chunks of fish, meat and vegetables in from our outside stores against the side of the house, as they helped Tana and her Zippleback to start making the main meal of the day for everyone. No sooner had Rökkr shut the front door against a howling snowstorm outside though, than Roana reopened it as she trudged in, quickly muscling the front door closed behind her as well before shaking powdery snow off her heavy winter sheepskin coat.

"Finally up, huh?" she smiled at me.

"I would like to be doing more than sleeping, but . . ." I sighed, holding up my arm and leg casts from the bedding.

"You're doing good," she assured, smiling warmly at me as she took off her coat and moved to hang it up to warm and dry from a wooden peg mounted on a vertical house beam near the cooking fire, briefly pausing to warm her hands in front of it as well.

"Been 'chiefing' again?" I wondered with my own smile.

"Guilty," she replied, turning back towards me. "Just checking on everything around the village—"

A slow pounding on our front door interrupted her. From its almost measured pace, I could tell it wasn't human. Our front door was surprisingly busy this midday. No wonder it seemed so cold in the house.

"Ah, there he is," my mate replied, seeming to be expecting our visitor as she turned and moved to the door. "He said he wanted to drop by."

She reopened the door to the blowing snow, and what I can only describe as essentially an ice and snow encrusted Night Fury then walked in. It looked and grunted to Roana as she moved back from the door though, before it then proceeded to close the door using its tail with far more ease than she had.

"Frelsari," I said in both greeting and surprise, having seen him enough times now to recognize him from his somewhat more wrinkled muzzle than most other Night Furies—that, and guessing. I was chief after all, and felt I should be able to recognize and greet at least the village members of my own tribe.

He murmured, nodding affirmatively towards me.

"He wanted to visit you, and Substance," Roana conveyed as Frelsari continued murmuring, looking at me, "as he imagines neither of you get many visitors right now. Also, having almost become chief himself back in 1943, he wanted to be available to you as an elder and counselor."

"Why didn't you take the job?" I posed directly, sitting up amid my bedding. "Either in 1943, or now?"

As my mate translated, Frelsari emitted a single, two-tone grunt, almost cutting her off.

"Helga," Roana translated back to me. Neither of them said anything more as he looked at me. They didn't have to. I just looked aside and nodded.

The dragon then grunted some more. "He wants to inform you that he and Helga have adopted Alexi as their grown son," my mate continued, "to better ensure his integration and acceptance into the village. Now that Alexi is a family member of a house here, he will no longer be shunned."

"Thank you, Frelsari," I replied, somewhat moved at his gesture and dedication. Even though he wasn't chief, he had the dedication and wisdom of one—a great one I felt. I briefly imagined what Berk might have become under this dragon's leadership, and wound up feeling somewhat inadequate.

To my surprise, he then stepped forward, stretching his neck across me to nudge Substance on her neck and head, closing his eyes and murmuring.

"He's saying that even though Alexi can't be here, and Substance can't visit Alexi right now," Roana conveyed, "he asks for Substance's prayer and blessing on Alexi and their family."

I had to quietly smile as Substance raised her head and began humming as Frelsari and the rest of us joined her. Deferring to Substance and asking her to fulfill her role in our tribe, Frelsari wasn't missing a thing.

After Substance had finished her prayer, and he seemed to be turning to leave, "Frelsari," I then called to him, "sure you wouldn't like to be part of our leadership? I could make you Guardian of something."

As Roana translated my offer, the dragon again emitted that same two-toned grunt, shaking his head. My mate saw me nodding in acceptance with a knowing smile, so she didn't bother to translate. At least I was learning a little Dragon . . . even if it was just 'Helga'.

Frelsari then murmured again, looking at me. "He asks if there is anything else he can do for you, or the village," my mate resumed conveying.

"Just keep doing what you are," I accepted. "You have no idea how valuable that is."

Our Night Fury visitor nodded to me after Roana had translated for him, then grunting to Substance who grunted in reply. He grunted and nodded to Roana as well, before flipping our front door open again with his tail and backing out, so he could pull the door closed himself with his teeth as the snowstorm blew, saving Roana the trouble.

"He is a remarkable dragon," I admired to my mate with a sigh. "I wish he would accept a leadership position, but I'm seeing why he won't."

"He leads in his own way," Roana noted as she sat down next to me on the bedding, "by example to us, as much as anything else. Alexi won't have any more problems in this village though, thanks to him."

I smiled.

"He told me earlier when I visited them," she continued, "that he will be working with Alexi's Nightmare on finding Alexi a mate, and asked me to put a request in to the Outside Berkers recruiting new villagers to join us for one or more young single women. Frelsari even requested that they be, quote, 'Skinny, like he is.'"

"If he told you all this before, why did he come here?" I wondered.

"Because you're chief, and Substance is Guardian of Memories," she replied, not saying anything further, or really needing to.

"He could do so much good as a leader though, even chief," I said.

"I know, but he does have universal respect in this tribe," my mate replied. "He doesn't need a position or title to do what he does among us. His name is all he needs."

"I feel so . . ." I sighed.

"Loved, needed," Roana encouraged, moving on her knees to embrace and rub me from the side. I finally looked up at her. "And don't worry," she added, "you're being a very good Ýsa. Your line is famous for such self-doubting, all the way back to Hiccup himself."

"These casts aren't helping," I sighed, raising them a little.

"Just five more weeks to go for your arm, nine for your leg, my love," my mate encouraged with a kiss on my cheek.

Her kiss alone kept me from swearing with frustration at that reminder. "This is little better than a prison sentence," I said anyway.

"Well let me also tell you that Frelsari is having Alexi begin teaching him English and even Russian," Roana continued, seeming to distract me, "along with his Nightmare. He basically knows from your experience that Alexi is unlikely to be able to learn Dragon anytime soon. And he is also asking me questions about how to help Alexi regain his strength and mobility. Now that he considers Alexi a son, he simply won't allow Alexi to fail, or fail to recover."

"So that Night Fury really is head of that household and family," I observed, letting Roana's distraction begin to work.

"Yeah, he is," Roana agreed, "and has been since Helga's parents were killed in our World War II battle. But since they were both fairly young at the time, Helga being a small child of course, they've matured as basically equal partners. It's difficult to describe in Outsider terms."

"Amazing," I remarked. "But if he's so interested in a mate for Alexi, why didn't he find one for Helga?"

"I've been told she never wanted one," my mate replied. "After seeing her parents killed, even as a two year-old, Helga began renouncing being human, for a good long time. She just kept running away to live in the caves as a dragon, away from other humans. She even stopped speaking Norse for the longest time, and would only grunt at the rest of us in Night Fury. Frelsari stuck with her, and patiently brought her back to the village, swearing she would always be protected, and never apart from him. He came to realize he could never have a mate of his own in their family arrangement, and realized that she never wanted to relate closely with another human. So they've just matured into their own commitment together, and now, neither of them would want it any other way. Frelsari wants to cement Alexi into the village though, and agrees with Alexi's Nightmare that could best be done by finding him a mate, and settling him down with a family of his own to protect and nurture here."

"Well, put a communique through our MJK to the Baroness," I responded.

"I already have," Roana assured with a smile, "even spoke with her briefly on a radio-phone patch, as well as faxing a photo of Alexi to her. Plus on my other rounds, I also hitched a ride with O'Connell and Garrison up to the caves so Rökkr and Spring could keep helping Tana here, and I reminded the cave dragons to come down to the village for more fish anytime they want. They're still used to fending for themselves up there during winters, even with all the wounded and handicapped among them they're caring for now."

"That will always be with us now, won't it," I sighed regretfully, now sitting up in my bedding against Substance.

"And there has never been more joy and meaning in those caves than I am seeing there these days," Roana assured, kneeling down next to me and taking my good left hand in hers. "Dragons are caring for each other, even bonding, like I have never seen before . . . ever. You've seen some of that, remember? They're even starting to celebrate Yule up there already—what we also used to call 'Snoggletog' in some of our ancient writings at times, for some weird reason. The dragons up there are burning logs, tacking up tree branches, sometimes whole trees on the cave walls, as well as planting a big Yule tree front and centre, right near the main cave entrance, for everyone to see."

"Dragons, doing this on their own?" I wondered.

"We humans are helping them, as they request it," she replied, sitting down next to me in her layered tunics, leggings and boots as Tana brought her a warming mug of mead tea without being asked. "þakka þér, Tana," Roana said gratefully before facing me again. "But as I've told you," she continued, "they rub off on us, and we've rubbed off on them."

"Do dragons have any holidays of their own?" I wondered.

"Dragons don't keep calendars," Substance reminded next to me in her deep voice. "Moons, seasons just pass for us. We don't care how many suns or moons pass before we can have Yule. It snows, it's time for Yule. We enjoy feasts, tea, cider, even presents, too. Fish is all we care about mostly as presents. Deer though," she sighed, " . . . that is special."

"I have never gotten used to eating deer here," I sighed. "All those movies and stories I've seen them in—they're just too . . . nice."

"Humans get attached to sheep and cows, too at times," Substance noted. "Have Outsider book in archives about lovable farm cow and sheep who work together with child. Yet you eat cows and sheep."

"Before I came here," I replied, "I never met what I ate."

"You feel more aware, grateful towards them as you eat them now?" she wondered.

"Yeah," I sighed, "I do."

"That is all they ask," my dragon replied. "We all die, our bodies all eaten by something. Flames, mouths or insects—it makes no difference."

"Dragons have never gone vegetarian?" I wondered.

"Need concentrated proteins found in meat, Doctor," Substance reminded me, "for flight, and gas generation. We could not be what we are on grass alone. Neither could birds."

"Of course," I sighed with some chagrin. "Basic biology—let alone chemistry."

"Just treat animals well while alive," my dragon counseled, "give them good lives, then be grateful to them in death as they feed you. Gratitude gladdens their spirits, makes them feel complete after passing on."

"I wouldn't presume to doubt you on that, Guardian," I said.

"You Guardian, too," she countered. "You as responsible as I for preserving and interpreting our ways."

"It's true, Lance," Roana chimed in next to me as she finished her tea. "A chief must know all."

"Does that mean it's 'back to work', for me here?" I asked optimistically, looking at her.

"Nope," she said, rising up. "It's a sponge bath for both you and Substance first, then dinner."

"It doesn't sound all bad," I relented.

"It's good, trust me," my mate winked.

— — — — —

I could only roll further to one side and watch as Substance was bathed and scrubbed right where she lay.

"Our bedding needs to be changed and washed anyway," Roana noted, excusing the fact that our mattresses, quilts and sheepskins were now all getting soaked.

"But we only just got here a few days ago," I replied.

"Shhhhh!" she countered, fortunately with a smile as she and Tana resumed scrubbing Substance hard, before changing the bandage wraps around her wings and midsection.

I just sat back and gazed at my dragon companion as she was being pampered. She had come back once before, but as I looked at her black wings that had been injured yet again, I just felt saddened for her. How much more did she have to go through? Substance now seemed to almost be a hard luck dragon to me with all the misfortune and setbacks she had experienced in life. Was she a reincarnation of Alltaf perhaps, the unconditionally loving Night Fury who had also experienced hard luck? I shook it all out of my head though. Substance needed support from me, not pity, and she seemed content enough with all the care she was receiving now.

"Your turn," I then heard from Roana, stirring me from my thoughts.

"Help me to the tub then," I sighed, beginning to strain to get up from my bedding and pillows.

"Oh no, no," my mate warmly countered. "We're just going to lay you flat right where you are, wash around your casts, and then move you onto fresh dry bedding afterwards."

"Could I go to the latrine first then?" I asked.

"Okay, let's go," she accepted, moving on her knees to begin helping me up.

"Wait, no tunic?" I hesitated as she put my good left arm over her shoulder as Tana moved to brace me on my right side as I sat up amid quilts and sheepskins.

"Why?" Roana asked. "We're going to have to take it right off you again."

"But . . ." I hesitated, glancing between Roana and Tana.

"Mister Outsider," my mate sighed, "Tana has already helped me wash you once, and apply your casts and bandages. By now she is already thoroughly familiar with what you look and even feel like. You're as bad as your ancestor, Hiccup, was in the Journal at times, you know that?"

"Why thank you," I accepted with a smile as the two of them now helped me to my feet, and clear of the covers.

"You're in Berk now, let alone Europe," Roana noted to me as both she and Tana helped me hobble over to the latrine closet wearing nothing more than casts and some bandaging, as I remembered reading a passage very similar to this in Hiccup's journal. "We don't have hang-ups about the body . . . at least those of us outside your family line."

I just smiled and surrendered, even turning my head and kissing Roana on the cheek to signal it. After all, it was better than life in Texas had ever been for me . . . a lot better.

— — — — —

Before long, I was scrubbed, dried and relaxing in fresh bedding, next to Substance.

"Wish I could help," I sighed as I watched my mate and Tana now scrubbing the dirty quilts and sheepskins in our bathtub, before hanging them to dry on the rafters around the central cooking fire.

"I'll make that wish come true," Roana replied as she worked, "before you know it."

"You sure you don't want more modern conveniences around here?" I wondered, looking around. "Especially now with the military units being stationed with us now, and all they're bringing. I mean, you could even be washing and drying those in their laundry machines they've put in the bunker."

"No," Roana said firmly as she paused and turned to me.

"But even the Lapps, excuse me, Sami," I corrected myself, "have adopted modern conveniences in most of their homes, from what I've seen in magazines before I came here."

"Lance," my mate said, resting on her knees from her intensive labours for a moment, "we have twenty-seven human villagers here now. Even with just a dozen military being with us as well, our resources are still limited. Imagine what will happen when we rebuild our numbers to sixty or more again. Imagine the electricity alone for all those washing machines we would need if everyone here had them. I've already had to forbid other villagers from using that one washer and dryer in the bunker. The troops use them enough as it is, and I've even talked to O'Connell about getting his Norwegian military counterparts to try adopting our ways, blending in more with us, including hand washing and drying their clothes.

"This is part of who we are," she said, picking up a corner of a wet quilt still floating in the tub. "You and I have to model that, live it. We live within what this island and the sea around us can provide."

I opened my mouth to speak, but she cut me off.

"And don't start with me about importing medical supplies," Roana knowingly countered, "because I started that myself. But Roald and Árvekni were partly right, too. Living in balance with our surroundings, independently, is as much a part of who we are as living with our dragons. Yes, you and I have shifted that balance, but you know as well as I do that we risk losing something important if we adopt too many Outsider ways, even conveniences. We tread a fine line, on so many things now. Our family lived at the station for a while. We used the conveniences they had there. But did we feel like Dragon Berkers, true Berkers and Vikings, while we were there? Or were we already starting to lose parts, maybe important parts, of who we were, and wanted to be?"

This time, Roana seemed to wait for an answer from me.

"I remember that as much as we had there," I slowly realized, "I wanted to be back here . . . in this house, just as it was, and is. It is medieval. There's nothing like this on the Outside, except in museums."

"No, there isn't," my mate answered. "Isn't that, even this," she said, picking up the corner of that wet quilt again, "worth protecting? Even if it's a pain in the butt?"

"Yes," I replied as Roana now rushed over to me. "Yes," I repeated as I held her tightly in my one good left arm, rocking her against me as I kissed her forehead hard. "I'm sorry," I admitted.

"Believe me," she sniffed, "having lived on the Outside at times, I would like to just throw clothes, even food, into machines, and have it all done for me. But then, I feel I wouldn't be Viking anymore—I wouldn't be Berker. I'd just be a modern Norwegian . . . and much of what our ancestors fought and sacrificed for would be lost. Every Berker who chooses to live here, in this island village, fights this battle, Lance. Some lose it though, and leave, like my parents did. But thank the gods some of us stay, and keep fighting this battle, washing our clothes by hand, and cooking food over fires . . . just as our ancestors did. That, to me, is just as important as protecting our dragons. It is, Lance, and I need your help, even just your support right now. It is up to you and I to continue this, or allow it to be abandoned, overtaken by convenience. It's that simple."

"We really are co-chiefs, aren't we?" I smiled, kissing her forehead once again.

"Protecting our people and ways together," she agreed, resting against me, "right down to how we wash and cook."

"I support you, Roana, just as I love you," I assured, "all the way. Just get me out of these casts as soon as possible, so I can help you."

"You can help me right now," she suggested, looking at me as she now sat up and began stripping her tunics off of herself. "I need a break. Just leaning against you here isn't bad."

"How about a one-handed rub?" I offered.

I didn't need to ask twice as Roana immediately stripped off her remaining top and rolled over on the fresh bedding for whatever massage I could give her. I did have to work things out though, as with my right arm in a cast and sling and my right leg in another cast right to the thigh, positioning myself so I could even apply some pressure with my left arm and hand would be a trick.

"Uhh, could you move over to my right side?" I finally asked after puzzling it out for a moment as she just lay on my left side, waiting.

Fortunately, Roana was a good sport about it all, and after she resettled face down in between Substance and I, and I had rolled onto my right side and propped myself up on my right elbow in the cast, which hurt less than I had feared, I was able to start working her bared back and shoulders with my left hand, even employing my left forearm at times to increase the contact area.

"Tana, gætirtu vinsamlegast fá hút olíu úr læknisfræti rateining minn?" I soon heard my mate request as I worked on her. Soon, a jar of homemade oil was being laid on Roana's left side within my reach. The lid was even already removed for me. "See?" Roana then said as I proceeded to work the oil into her back with my one good hand, "I wouldn't need this if we had a washing machine, would I? I'd be missing out."

I just lowered myself onto her back, whispering in her ear, "You're right as always," then sealing it with a kiss that made her smile as her eyes remained blissfully closed.

"I'm not always right," she quietly replied.

"Shhhhh . . ." I then soothed, breathing around her ear, and making her quiver and erupt in gooseflesh all over.

Roana then rolled herself over underneath me. "Lance, do the rest of me," she quietly invited.

I just smiled, silently signalling my compliant surrender again by drawing the covers over us, careful not to spill the jar of oil, as she slipped out of her remaining clothing. That Tana was less than fifteen feet away, once more quietly working with her back to us chopping the remaining frozen vegetables and meat and tossing it all into a cauldron for stew in the cooking area no longer mattered to me.

Berkers had been loving each other with family around just like this for some nine hundred years, and I wasn't about to break with our traditions now.

— — — — —

With Roana and I feeling very refreshed from our 'break', it was soon time for supper. Insisting that my mate just continue relaxing beside me, Tana told us this was 'her dinner' and she wanted to do all the work. Roana just smiled as she nestled against me, with me kissing and cradling her some more as our portions of stew were brought to us in bowls, while Rökkr fetched buckets of it for his dragon half of our family, and Tana's Zippleback set out platters of raw, unfrozen fish for the dragons in our household as well.

Substance then reasserted herself as spiritual leader of our family and village. "Say prayer first," she then simply said as our food was distributed in front of all of us.

"But Roana, you told me," I noted to my mate as we sat up in the bedding to enjoy our meal now, "or your old self did on our first dinner date back at your uncle's inn, that our people didn't say grace. We haven't before here."

"It appropriate to thank those who provide our meal," my dragon companion noted, reminding me of our earlier discussion, as she then began humming, leading us in a prayer, presumably of thanks to Spirit, and to the animals and fish that comprised our dinner. As our shared humming went on though, I realized this was as much for Substance, to give her a further feeling of being useful again, as much as it was for any of the rest of us, or for Spirit or the animals we were thanking.

Being home, really home—even injured and laid up—it was just feeling good as our family prayer ended and we each began enjoying our stew or fish, with Roana feeding me spoonfuls of my stew in bed as I kept my good left arm pleasurably around her bared back. Howling snow outside; fire, dim candlelight and warmth inside, shared with family. I just closed my eyes, savouring it all for a moment.

"What is it?" I heard Roana ask, as I looked to see the latest spoonful of stew positioned in front of my smiling but still closed mouth.

"Just this," I sighed, looking at the spoon she was holding, as well as her and all around our family and home, "all of it. It's so good."

"You're making it good, too," she replied as she slipped the spoonful of stew into my mouth, before I moved to give her a somewhat messy, stewy kiss on her lips. "Hold still," she then said as she moved her tongue around the edges of my mouth and even my brown goatee. I could only laugh. We both did.

After all we had been through . . . this past spring and summer, the battle, the aftermath . . . it was finally feeling like we were home now, really home. I had never known such feelings of peace, contentment and love as I was feeling now within myself. This was as much what Berk and life here were about, I decided, as any of our traditions or choices.

"Mjög gót máltít, Tana, excellent meal," I praised after we had all, dragon and human, finished enjoying the dinner she and her dragon had prepared for us. "But what would you like? Hvat vilt þú?" I asked.

"Jól," she simply replied. "Þat vertur fyrst minn sítan Ongar litin. Til at fagna því met fjölskyldu, þat er allt sem ek vil."

Both Roana and I looked at each other, moved, as we relaxed curled up together under the covers. All Tana wanted was to celebrate Yule with family. Noting that her own mate had passed this year, she had likely been fearing she would observe it alone, or just with her new Zippleback companion.

"Allt í hag at byrja Jólin bara svolítit snemma hér. All in favour of starting Yule just a little early here," my mate then posed in both languages. Even I couldn't vote against that, for Tana's sake.

But, in keeping with another Berker winter tradition and habit . . . we put off starting to prepare for Yule for another day. Especially when storms were blowing outside, after dinner was for relaxing, even sleeping.

The last thing I remember that night was seeing Roana's left hand and fingers intertwined with mine on my chest as she lay quietly curled up against me in the bedding. Our two gold dragon rings were right together, as they had been the day they were made.

— — — — —

The next morning though, I was awakened with hot tea . . . and a book.

"What's this?" I wondered as my mate proceeded to stack pillows behind me, and strip back out of her indoor tunic. "I thought we were going to start preparing for Yule today."

"We'll do that when it's nice enough to go outside and gather tree boughs and berries for decoration," Roana confirmed as I could hear the icy winds of another storm howling outside. "But today, it isn't. So we observe another Berker winter tradition instead . . . just you, me, our family if they want to join in, and the Journal."

"Come here," I invited, welcoming her back into my arms. "This is pretty special. You and I held the journal together back at the inn, the night we had our big, revelatory talk and you introduced me to Rökkr. But you know, we never read a word of it together then."

"Well," she smiled, "the new me scores again."

"You're scoring with me all the time," I assured.

Roana curled up tightly against me as we opened the journal together, while our dragons laid their heads close beside us, ready to listen. Tana was now resting from her labours as well this morning, relaxing against her own Zippleback as it turned both heads to listen, too.

"Where did you leave off?" my mate wondered as the hand-copied pages, still in runic lettering, were revealed.

"Shouldn't we start at the beginning in this family?" I suggested.

"Yeah, let's," Roana agreed as she rested her head on my shoulder and we flipped back to the front of the compact but thick book.

Then, as head of our household, Chief of the village, and an Ýsa myself, I began reading in the original Norse . . .

"'Þetta er Berk. Þat er tólf daga nortur af Vonlaus og nokkrar grátur sutur af Frystingu til Dauta. Þat er statsett sterkbyggtur á Mitjunnar á Eymd. þorpit mitt—í orti . . . traustur. Þat hefur verit hér í sjö kynslótir, en hvert einasta bygging er nýtt. Vit höfum veitar, veiti, og heillandi mynd af sólarlags. Eina vandamál eru skatvalda. Þú sért, at flestir statir hafa mýs eta moskítóflugur. Vit höfum . . . drekar!'"

"Lance," my mate gently interrupted as she looked at me, "I've heard and read those words like that my whole life. I'd kind of like to share it now in our language, the language this family shares alone. Spring knows the story. It would help him learn English, especially as he reads along beside us. It's how I taught Rökkr."

"What about Tana and her Zippleback?" I asked Roana while partly glancing toward our elderly housemate.

"Ennglissh," Tana said, evidently beginning to pick up some anyway being around us.

"Alright," I accepted, clearing my throat and readying myself for a real mental challenge of reading one language while speaking another. "You want me to start from the beginning again?"

"Please," she asked with a kiss, "and let me know when you want a break. I'll be happy to share the reading here."

"So this is what families do here when winter sets in?" I double-checked.

"Yep," she smiled, "and we talk about what we read, too. If we're lucky, when we finish the journal, spring will be here."

"Spring is always here now," I replied, giving my son a pat and a wink, as he smiled, too, laying next to us.

"Start again," my mate requested as both she and Spring looked at the book with me as Rökkr and Substance just rested together around us, ready to listen, as were Tana and her dragon.

"'This is Berk,'" I now read in our chosen family language. "'It's twelve days north of Hopeless and a few degrees south of Freezing to Death. It's located solidly on the Meridian of Misery. My village—in a word . . . sturdy. It's been here for seven generations, but every single building is new. We have fishing, hunting, and a charming view of the sunsets. The only problems are the pests. You see, most places have mice or mosquitoes. We have . . . dragons!'

"You know," I interrupted myself, "I should be writing this down. My cousin, Brigader Husa, or Gunnar, says he can't read runes. But he can read and understand English."

"You don't think that even as an Outside Berker now, he should understand the language of Berk?" Roana wondered.

"I don't know," I replied. "Maybe I wouldn't be doing it for just him though, but for the future. One day, gods willing, we will be able to reveal and share ourselves with the world. Wouldn't it help if the world could come to understand what we live for, and why, without having to learn an entire language to do so? If the Bible can be translated from the original Greek and Latin, or from even Elizabethan English, couldn't this Journal be translated beyond the original Norse?"

"Looks like you have a winter's project here," my mate smiled beside me, "maybe for several winters to come."

"I should be getting back to my biology work," I sighed.

"Not exclusively," she soothed, caressing the right side of my face with her left hand, "and definitely not now while you're healing. Just read," she invited.

"'Most people would leave,'" I resumed reading, "' . . . but not us. We're Vikings. We have stubbornness issues . . .'"

Both Roana, along with Rökkr and Substance, laughed at my chosen translated words.

"Hey," I defended, "that's the closest approximation I can come to with what's written here. He wrote in a colloquial, casual manner—I'm reading it in English that way, using modern terms."

"It's wonderful, Lance," my mate sighed with a smile, catching her breath amid her laughter. "You're absolutely right. That's just the way he had written it. Your translation is much better than mine was. And besides, you're a son of Hiccup, part of him is in you. He is speaking through you now. Just let him speak, and allow the rest of us the honour of listening to him, and you."

I held Roana close now with one arm. "Thank you," I said. "Thank you for both of us . . . Hiccup and I."

"Read on, my wonderful Ýsa," my mate encouraged with a kiss as she began turning pages in the Journal for me. "Just read."

"'My name's Hiccup,'" I resumed, looking at the new runic page in front of me. "'Great name, I know,'" I accurately conveyed to everyone's amusement again, really getting into the spirit of it now. Last time at the inn, I was just reading these runes silently to myself, in almost stunned disbelief. Now, I was reading them aloud in a new language, breathing life into them again with Ýsa breath itself, in a new way. The words were flowing as I spoke them, almost as if I was Hiccup, telling his story, our shared story, to a new generation of Ýsa humans and dragons.

"You definitely have to share this, my love," Roana encouraged with a kiss, still curled up, still unclothed on my lap under a shared quilt as I paused reading sometime later to take a breath, as she gave me a needed sip of water as well. "But we, your family, want to hear it in full, first."

I read and read from the Journal that day, forgetting time, forgetting to eat. Even Roana thought I was doing just too good a job at reading the Journal in English to warrant her taking over. Such was the magic of the story, and how we were sharing it.

"It's why every household here is probably reading this book today," my mate shared as we finally took a real break to eat, and do everything else. "It helps us stretch out our food supplies, conserve energy, and pass winter in the most wonderful way imaginable."

"You know," I had to admit, "when I was reading it the first time back at the inn, I didn't eat much then either, and I lost all track of time."

"It's what the Journal does," she replied with a smile, finally rising off my lap and donning an indoor tunic to take care of things now with Tana.

"Anything I can do?" I offered as I still sat in our bedding among our dragons.

"You have done more than enough today, my Ýsa," she assured as Rökkr stirred himself as well, inviting Spring with a bark to venture outside with him and take care of what even dragons needed to.

"Lannce . . ." Substance now warned.

"Go right ahead," I invited with a smile. "Roana . . ." I then called, while glancing between her and Substance as a distinct fishy smell began filling the air.

"Sorry," my dragon sighed. I just warmly rubbed her large black head.

— — — — —

A few days later, it was nice enough for the able-bodied portion of our family to venture outside and start gathering materials for Yule . . . as I was later told most other families were doing as well. We had no astronomers among us to measure sun angles, and it was dark almost constantly anyway. Plus, we shunned calendars in the village, except for the one Roana had let me keep from the Kafé Berk at Wønur. But as Substance had noted, when the dragons decided it was time for Yule and began decorating for it with our help, the rest of the tribe just followed suit.

Soon, amid the simple evergreen boughs and red and white berries tacked up around us, our home began to take on an even warmer glow . . . but maybe that was the hard apple cider that Tana and Roana seemed to be making an abundance of.

"Looks like I need to be bringing the mistletoe to you," Roana smiled, settling next to me and holding a sprig of it over both our heads as the rich smell of that cider filled our household.

"Is it really over?" I asked. "The hardships, battles, and everything else?"

"Oh I'm sure there'll be more," my mate assured, still holding the sprig above us. "Except for the hard-pitched battles. Those seem to be coming every forty years or so right now. But hopefully with the Norwegian military here, we're putting a stop to that."

Roana's hand holding up the mistletoe now dropped to my chest as we curled up against one another tightly on the family bedding in our indoor tunics. Memories of the battle came rushing back into both our heads. I started to be haunted by the tally of all those who wouldn't be celebrating Yule with us this winter. They seemed like an army in themselves, led by Árvekni and Roald.

"All those Dragons and Riders," I couldn't help saying out loud, " . . . they used to fill the sky."

Roana now broke down and began quietly crying against me.

"I'm sorry," I whispered, now holding her tightly and rocking her a little. "I shouldn't have gone there."

"Every home here is sharing this pain," she sniffed, still resting her head against my shoulder as she almost clung to the rest of me.

"Roana," I said, recalling one healing aspect of Yule that I had read in the Journal back at the inn months ago, "you're right. Call a tribal gathering," I directed, "at the ceremonial area one decent afternoon or evening as darkness returns . . . and find the biggest Yule log there is."

— — — — —

I was on my feet, on crutches, and outdoors for the first time again a few nights later as Substance managed to be up and on her paws as well, once again wearing her battle-scarred strap of office along with the bandages around her wings. She would never have that leather strap repaired or replaced now though, out of respect for all we had suffered, and all those we had lost.

Led by Petty Officer O'Connell and Garrison, our Dragon Riders had found the largest and fortunately dead tree on the island, and had flown a section of it to our ceremonial area. Building a fire around its base as the broad, massive log lay sideways on the spot where our fallen had been cremated, a number of our dragons lit the fire as an icy calm that matched the cold pervaded the village around us while the rest of our village and tribe, and even our MJK platoon, watched.

I didn't try to hide our pain. "We have lost too much, and too many this year," I began as Roana translated as always beside me. "But as one of our founders, and my ancestor, Astrid, encouraged one Yule as recorded in the Journal, let us lay our cares . . . our sorrows . . . on this log; and allow Thor, with his hammer, Mjollnir, to transform them into the sparks of something better . . ."

I couldn't hold it together anymore at that point as Roana and I both turned to each other and let our hidden, lingering grief quietly flow.

My family went first. As flames began to crackle around the base of that massive log, the rest of us silently guided Substance to it as we all—Spring, Substance, Rökkr, Tana with her Zippleback, Roana and I—touched that log. I tried to will all my roiling, turbulent emotions through my good left hand, past the bark and into that wood . . . all the anguish, the guilt at having brought war to us, allowing the Outside to pour into the village as it had, even becoming dependent on it—everything. I also cast the last of my Outside self into that log and developing fire. I had no more use or desire for it. Part of me even despised it now.

"Árvekni . . . Roald . . . everyone . . . I am so sorry," I found myself saying as I leaned forward, pressing my forehead now against that huge, horizontal tree trunk that was somewhat wider than I was tall, grimacing with regret as wisps of smoke rose around my face.

I then felt a kiss—a long, slow one—against my right cheek. "We forgive you," Roana gently said. "You are forgiven, Lance . . . fully. Never forget, or doubt that now. It is done, over. You are our chief, our protector, our guardian. Let that be your sole focus from here on. Leave everything else in this log."

"I am," I vowed, now removing my forehead from it, and standing upright again.

As my family now moved aside for others to touch the log, I realized that I had done this for me as much as for our village. With tears in her lifeless eyes, Substance turned herself around, raising her head towards the dark but calm sky, and began a low, steady hum. As Roana, I, and the rest of our family also turned our faces skyward and joined in that hum, I felt cleansed, focused.

Now Yule could happen in my heart.

Roana and I had made no gifts to give each other, so we just gave ourselves to one another when we began celebrating Yule in earnest the next day, retreating to our old bedding area behind the screen at the back of the house . . . for I don't know how long. We just took care to wrap both my arm and leg casts with sheepskins so Roana wouldn't get scratched.

I felt like a man, a husband and lover again. It was wonderful.

— — — — —

One of the things I felt most thankful for this Yule though was our resident U.S. Navy SEAL, Petty Officer Miles O'Connell.

Even before my fall and injury with Substance, Roana and I had been very busy as we got used to leading and coordinating the entire village, as well as beginning to dramatically improve relations with both the Outside Berker community and the portions of Norway and the rest of the world that were authorized to know about us. So O'Connell, virtually on his own, had taken it upon himself to rally the demoralized remnant of our Dragon Rider force, integrate them with our assigned MJK platoon, and get the MJK commandos paired up with dragons and riding them, even though he had never been a Dragon Rider before he met Dragon Garrison in the aftermath of our battle. Being a bridge between Old and New, between Berker and Outsider, and a never-ending source of 'can do' spirit and optimism for everyone he worked with—Petty Officer O'Connell had wound up becoming the de facto leader of the Dragon Rider force now under Roana and myself. Amazingly our six surviving native Dragon Riders deferred to him, even helping him lead as everyone worked to figure out one another's language—Dragon, Old Norse, the Bokmål and Nynorsk dialects of Norwegian, and English.

Often telling Roana and I through the fall that we, "had enough on our plate," O'Connell had minimized the amount of checking-in he did with us, usually just assuring that things were going fine when we, usually Roana now, asked him. The smiles of the native Riders and the MJK who usually accompanied him were ample confirmation that everything was as he assured us.

So I was surprised when he came to see Roana and I at home one afternoon. Roana certainly was, having to hurriedly dress with even just an indoor tunic before she rose from our family bedding, as Rökkr had kindly answered and opened the door to greet our knocking guest. If it had been a dragon or even a human villager, my mate would have likely just remained as she was next to me.

"Nice to finally see you, O'Connell," I greeted him, donning an indoor tunic myself as he respectfully removed his jacket hood and cap. "Even though I've been right in the village here, I've missed you. So please let's see you a bit more often, even if it's to tell me that, 'everything's fine.'"

"Care for some of our cider, Miles?" my mate offered, now feeling more comfortable around him being dressed in her indoor tunic.

"Thank you, m'am," the buzz-cut, brown haired SEAL member said with surprising formality without smiling. "Permission to be seated, sir?" he then asked me.

"Of course," I said with a degree of concern now, gesturing with my left hand towards a simple wooden armless chair that was positioned in between myself and the house fire that was warmly crackling away. "How's everything going?"

He seemed strangely unable to speak for a moment, before finally saying, "I'm being recalled to my unit, sir. I was informed by radio this morning."

Roana and I glanced at each other almost in shock.

"Well," I sighed, "I've been fixing things at times with our valued MJK commandos, especially their medic. So it looks like I'll have to go to work on your behalf now, as I simply do not want this village, or especially our Dragon Riders, doing without you . . . at least for the rest of the winter."

"With all due respect, sir," he said quietly, "you don't understand."

"What am I not getting here?" I asked as Roana now brought mugs of hot cider for both of us.

"Since you both have top secret clearance, I can tell you," he said, taking a deep breath. "My unit is being clandestinely deployed into Afghanistan, to recon and assess the Mujahideen resistance against the occupying Soviet Red Army there, and determine whether they're capable and worthy of U.S. support. If so, we are to begin providing weapons, training, and possibly limited tactical support without giving ourselves away, as well as eliminating any enemy that spots or encounters us."

"I'll take this up with NATO Commander, General Thorndyke," I decided. "Roana, please let's get me dressed and over to the MJK house where I can get on a secure radio."

"No sir, please," O'Connell countermanded, rising to his feet, stopping both Roana and I. "Don't do that."

My mate and I paused, with her supporting me as I sat up, as we allowed him to continue.

"I am still first and foremost a Navy SEAL," he said. "I swore an oath to answer my country's call, to go wherever I was sent, and to share whatever risks my fellow squad and platoon members do. I can't back out of all that now, or have even you intercede on my behalf . . . it just wouldn't be right."

"Miles, you're one of several, even a dozen to your platoon," I replied, "but you're one of a kind to us here . . . frankly irreplaceable. What you would do in Afghanistan could easily be done by others. But what you do with us here now, no one else is doing, or could easily do. Our need for you in particular, is simply greater. Not every SEAL is being sent to that Afghan engagement. If you were in a different platoon, or a different unit had been called up, you and I wouldn't even be having this discussion. Don't confuse the luck of the draw or chance with honour. Let me make that call."

"Sir," he responded, "I was sent here because the Soviets were threatening, even killing, an ancient, independent, and proud people. That is precisely what they are doing in Afghanistan. From what I understand, the Mujahideen freedom fighters, and the tribes, the families, they are defending there, are not that much different from what you were defending here against the Soviets. They just don't have dragons, or a leading scientist, to protect."

"Miles," I said, "I, we, simply do not want you to go. You have become part of us, a key part of us . . . and we have lost too much."

"You've given our Dragon Riders hope, Miles," my mate added, "even pride again, after the survivors felt they had failed to protect our people. You and you alone have taken them from a demoralized, even perhaps defeated force, overwhelmed by Outside armies from both sides, and you have brought them back, even integrating MJK Riders in among them. Lance and I couldn't have done that like you have.

"Plus," she continued, "Garrison is your dragon now. We didn't go through the ceremonies, or the training . . . but he is bonded with you. None of us intended for it to happen, I've even told him that you would be leaving one day. But you can't now, without destroying him."

"I've heard the legend of Alltaf," O'Connell admitted, looking down.

"This is now the same kind of thing," Roana responded. "So, for your dragon's sake, even life, if not your own, let Lance make that call."

"You would be destroying me then, in the eyes of all whom I have known," Miles countered, "even myself, if you did. You would be keeping just half a man, perhaps less."

It was clear we had reached a stalemate, one I had never wanted with the one Outsider Roana and I had come to depend on more than any other in our village.

"Let me go, with honor, sir and m'am," he requested. "Let me go to fight a further battle with our common enemy. Let me go to fight them there so they don't return here. If you do, in exchange, I will swear to return—to Garrison, to you, and to this village—and spend the rest of my natural life here. I was planning to anyway when my enlistment was up this time, if you would have me."

Roana rose up, rushing to embrace him now, and I wasn't far behind on my crutches.

"Send me away as an honored son of Berk," Miles asked with emotion as we both embraced him, "so I can return, as just that."

— — — — —

"I walk," Substance quietly assured the next evening as she rose onto her own paws, following me out our front door and onto the snow that was now level with our porch. With both my mate and I dressed in our Rider's garb and Knight's sashes over our winter clothing, Roana was helping me as I limped on crutches that now had small leather and wooden 'baskets' on their tips like ski poles, to prevent them from sinking into the icy white powder as I wore snowshoes under my feet as well.

The entire tribe, both villagers and cave dragons, were already making their way to the ceremonial area at the foot of our village, despite the deep snow that had fallen overnight and that morning. I had been hoping that the storm would have just kept howling, but the dark sky was now clear and filled with stars—unfortunately perfect weather for the U.S. Navy helicopter that had been cleared to land on our island by the MJK.

O'Connell, dressed in his heavy winter garb, was already down in the ceremonial area beside Garrison. Just looking at the two of them standing close side-by-side, they were Dragon and Rider, bound as firmly together as any could be. My heart was already breaking for them, especially for Garrison. I found myself praying fervently to Alltaf for help, even as we walked towards them through the snow.

Hobbling up in front of them both, "I don't know if I can do this," I quietly admitted to O'Connell.

"I don't know if I can either, sir," he somberly replied. "It's been hitting me today . . . what I am doing to Garrison."

I just moved to embrace him, as his dragon turned to nudge both of us with his large, red, toothy snout. That Nightmare knew what was going on, but for devotion alone, he was willing to proceed.

Finally, I turned beside them to face the village. "This is ostensibly a Departure Ceremony," I began, allowing Roana to translate into Norse for me. "But we are not simply allowing one of us to leave for the Outside. We are sending one of our own, a Dragon Rider, off to battle . . . to war. But, we cannot send you as only a Dragon Rider, Miles O'Connell," I smiled, turning to him, "for as a Navy SEAL, you are already better trained and more accomplished than even that. So, for outstanding and invaluable service to the Dragon Rider force, and to our Berk nation, I make you not only a member of our tribe, not just a Dragon Rider . . . but a Dreki Riddari, a Dragon Knight—the first of our new and revived order."

With Roana's help, I then presented him with his own Dragon Knight's sash, complete with ceremonial dagger, but without the usual memory drug syringes as he donned it over his winter garb to the enthusiastic cheers and roars of all around us.

Garrison's gaze of pride in his rider and companion was visible, before he then grunted at him.

"He asks you to remove his sash," Substance conveyed to O'Connell for Garrison.

"But those aren't my medals," O'Connell hesitated as Substance grunted in translation for Garrison.

Garrison murmured in reply, looking at O'Connell. "He is aware of that," Substance conveyed. "He is asking you to safeguard them . . . and bring them back."

O'Connell looked down, moved. Then he simply looked back into his dragon's eyes and nodded, before moving beside Garrison's long neck to untie the blue sash that the Nightmare had worn with pride ever since the aftermath of our battle. O'Connell then almost reverently folded the sash until just the three medals that Chief Arland Garrison had earned were showing on top.

The SEAL then looked down at the medals before looking at his dragon again. "I will bring these back," he said. The two then moved to nudge nose to snout, sealing the promise.

Then, without my prompting, the two of them fulfilled the heart of the Departure Ceremony, looking long and deeply into each other's eyes.

"I will return, Garrison, ek mun koma aftur. Ek sver. I swear," O'Connell quietly said with emotion.

The Nightmare dragon gently moved his large head forward as the tip of his tooth-filled snout nudged O'Connell's nose. As I watched, I prayed even harder now that this would be one vow between human and dragon that would not be broken.

Almost on cue, the whine of the helicopter's turbines could now be heard as they powered up at the other end of our village up in the valley. All Roana and I could do as O'Connell emerged from the nudge with his dragon was quietly embrace him. After us, he then turned and knelt for a departing blessing in front of Substance, nudging her face as she began briefly humming.

O'Connell was now Berker. I could not have been more proud of him.

"You take us all with you," Substance said, concluding her prayer. "Just come back. We not ourselves without you now."

"I will, Guardian," he pledged, his eyes now misting up along with the rest of ours.

"Garrison, brother, brótir," O'Connell then said, turning to his dragon, "vit skulum fara. Let's go."

O'Connell placed a bare, un-gloved hand on the side of his dragon's large head, before the two of them then walked together up through the snowy commons from our ceremonial area as the rest of our tribe parted around them. As Alltaf had done for his beloved rider and companion, Garrison had wanted to fly O'Connell to the Outside, even all the way to the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier waiting offshore, over the horizon to the west. But NATO General Thorndyke had denied that, not wanting to enforce an oath of silence and secrecy upon a carrier crew of five thousand for life as a red Nightmare dragon landed upon the ship's flight deck. "Having to arrange for his platoon pilots to fly him off your island to maintain your secret is complicated enough," Thorndyke had told me via radio that morning.

So Garrison was permitted to escort his rider to the helicopter, and then as part of a Dragon Rider escort to the edge of our protected territory, and that would be it.

"Go, Lannce," Substance encouraged me however as the two made their way among our tribe. "Make sure Garrison comes back."

"Yes, Substance," I agreed, looking at Roana.

Unfortunately with my arm and leg casts, other villagers had to help me mount Rökkr behind my mate. By the time I was in the saddle behind Roana, Garrison had reluctantly stepped away from the helicopter as its door closed and the craft was taking off from the other end of our village. Rökkr carried my mate and I into the air, following the rest of our force as it began to escort the U.S. Navy helicopter to the edge of Berk airspace. Where once there would have been dozens of us in the sky, there were now just eighteen Dragons and Riders, including the MJK. The sight of our still depleted numbers made the occasion even sadder.

All too soon, the helicopter and our escorting force reached the boundary of our protected territory, marked by flashing buoys in the waters below us.

"Catch us up with Garrison," I asked as Rökkr picked up his pace.

Even though dragons seemed to be even more aware of it than we were, Garrison ignored the boundary as he kept on pacing the helicopter while the rest of our Dragons and Riders dutifully banked away at its edge in two different directions.

"Garrison!" I yelled as we approached him. "Mundu skyldu til ættkvísl! Remember your duty to the tribe!"

"Garrison, aftur met okkur!" Roana called out more gently as well.

The riderless dragon now slowed to a hover in the air, allowing the helicopter to proceed on its way, out to the waiting carrier at sea. Garrison then bellowed out a long, plaintive roar of pain.

The roar of that dragon tore me apart inside. It was Alltaf's pain—the same anguish, all over again.

I allowed the Nightmare to remain hovering alone in the air for a moment longer, facing out to sea until the helicopter disappeared in the distance.

"Take us in front of him," I requested. Rökkr obediently moved us until we were hovering just a few metres in front of a seemingly utterly lost dragon flying in place over a dark, featureless ocean now.

"Garrison, komdu," I said to him. "Turn us back to Berk," I then asked Rökkr and Roana as our dragon turned beneath us in the air. Fortunately, Garrison followed, turning around as well.

As we all flew back to our island in silence, with the rest of our force surrounding Garrison, in support as much as to ensure he returned home, I figured even I must be part dragon. My heart felt like it had been ripped from my chest—understanding firsthand the pain of a dragon when it loses its rider, its companion. How my great grandfather, Asger, could have done this to Alltaf over nothing more wounded pride and vanity over losing an election, I couldn't imagine. But if he hadn't, my branch of the family would have succumbed to that Tuberculosis outbreak that wiped out the rest of our clan on the island some ninety years ago. Dragon forgiveness and acceptance . . . I was discovering those things for myself now as well.

When we all landed upon the snowy commons in our village again, an MJK rider stepped forward to assist Roana in dismounting me from Rökkr. "We'll keep him company tonight, sir," the rider then assured me in his mild Norwegian accent when I was back on the snow in front of our house, "both Dragons and Riders. We will see that Garrison is not left alone for a moment. We promised that to O'Connell."

"Very well," I quietly concurred.

It no longer felt like Yule in Berk. It just seemed it would be a long, cold, quiet winter now . . . possibly a very long one.


	36. Chapter 36

_Author's Note_

_Once again, other writing tasks have taken precedence these last two months, preventing my return to publishing this saga. But even though it may be taking me a while between chapters, and perhaps even longer in responding to reviews (providing Private Messaging is turned on), I do appreciate you reading, and your reviews. But in case you read the reviews here as well, Katielp2693's question from her review of Chapter 35 is already on its way to being answered, at least in one case. Read on and see._

_But above all, thank you, and enjoy._

— _Norwesterner_

* * *

><p>Life in our village and on our island continued amidst the frequent snowstorms and occasional sunny but frigid days. At times I thought how nice it would have been if my ancestors had located New Berk on a tropical island instead. But I would soon return to the inevitable conclusion that they had picked the right place, given that isolation and remaining hidden were the goals. No one else was going to bother us here, especially in winter. They hadn't in over nine hundred years . . . at least until I came along.<p>

I was reminded of that, looking around at village houses with patched blast holes still on them, as I would hobble on my crutches across the snowy commons now during the brief periods of daylight, usually while Roana was off on her rounds. During winters, a network of cleared paths was maintained across the village through layers of snow that were now deeper than I was tall. We minimized the work however, mostly by melting and compacting the snow until it was hard enough to walk on, even for a dragon. To be honest, the dragons basically did all of it. After all, why would a human villager labour in the snow, hurling shovelful after shovelful of it aside, perhaps progressing just ten to twenty metres in an hour; when a dragon could do the same work in a minute or less with a good, sustained blast of fire?

Just as we humans in the village had made traditions out of Ingathering and Yule, the dragons had made a tradition out of clearing paths for all of us in the village in winter. Roana had easily grunted their name for this tradition to me one day, but I couldn't begin to spell it here, let alone pronounce it. Village humans had never bothered coming up with a Norse name for it—they just used the Dragon name for this tradition, as it was the dragons' to begin with.

As long as we kept them fed with fish, after each snowstorm, village dragons would emerge from our houses in force, re-clearing the same network of paths, both among houses, and across the commons. Some cave dragons would come down to the village and pitch in as well, in exchange for a few platters of fish, even though those same dragons would also go on fish runs, sharing their catches with us.

"Why do they do it?" I asked Substance one morning as both she and I observed all the dragon snow clearing activity from our front porch—Roana having encouraged both of us to get some sunshine and fresh air while she made her vet rounds to the dragon caves on Rökkr.

"Because village needs it," my dragon simply replied, hearing the fiery blasting going on around us that she knew so well.

"But the dragons caught the fish we're supposedly paying them with," I added, "even dropping fish off with us from runs they still make, to give back to them later. They're not even taking many fish from the relief supplies we're bringing in."

"You taste that fish?" my dragon asked.

"That bad, huh?" I realized as Substance continued facing silently without further comment out towards the commons, seeming to emphasize her point. "Then I'm _really_ not getting why they help us," I wondered in confusion.

"Why you help another when they cannot pay?" Substance asked.

"Be— . . . Because it feels good," I slowly replied, grasping for any answer I could think of.

"Why would dragons not want to feel good also? Contribute to well-being of all?" she countered. "Payment of fish was started not for dragons, but to help humans feel better about us clearing snow for them.

"Tell you dragon secret," Substance then quietly said to me. "You humans think you take care of us; but we dragons know we take care of you."

I just turned and gave her a puzzled, even amazed look.

"You cannot come or go from island without us—at least before helicopters," she continued, accurately seeming to sense the surprised vibes I must have been giving off. "You could not fish without us, or farm as much food without us. Humans would have starved and died here long ago without us. We care for, protect, and feed you."

"We're pets to you then?" I wondered, looking at her.

"Equals better term," my Night Fury companion replied, "but sometimes, yes, you are pets to us. Caring for you make us feel good, bring us joy. Your kind seem more uncomfortable or sensitive about idea though, so we not talk about it, except among selves. You seem wise enough though, Lannce."

I now shook my head once more, even chuckling a little as I saw a villager present a Nadder with a platter of thawed fish after it had finished re-clearing another path. "That villager," I noted in explanation for my blind dragon, "paying the Nadder with fish that the dragon itself had perhaps caught a while back, with the dragon swallowing the fish off that platter, in apparent gratitude, even relish."

"Nadder is grateful," Substance noted, "just like you grateful when someone hands you tea or snack after hard work. No different. Guardian Love started tradition after Toothless pass on, including paying with fish, inspired by acts she saw among your kind. Wise dragon she was."

"You know of all the Guardians before you?" I wondered, still standing next to Substance on my crutches.

"Ask, and I tell you about them," she offered. "There are many. It hard to pick one to talk about unless question is asked."

"How many?" I queried.

"Dragons not good with numbers," she replied. "That human 'department', as you say. You like counting things, we don't see need to. One, us, is all we care about."

I removed my glove from my left hand, and laid that hand on Substance's head, gently rubbing, even itching it a little around her right earlobe where I knew she liked it.

"You're right," I simply said, leaning on my crutches. "One is all that matters here."

We both faced outward across the commons again, in companionate silence for a moment.

"Thank you for itching ear . . . pet," she then quietly said with a smile as my hand stopped moving around her earlobe.

I just turned, shedding my crutches and dropping onto my good knee, letting my right leg, still rigidly straight in its cast, slide down a couple steps off our porch onto a cleared pathway in the snow, as I embraced Substance's large black head with a smile on my own face as both of us laughed.

— — — — —

Another day though I was hobbling on those same dragon-cleared paths, even as more snow was falling on them, towards the house where our MJK platoon was billeted, having been told by a commando that my Air Force cousin, Brigader Hyse, wanted to talk with me once again via the MJK's radio.

Soon, I was welcomed as usual inside by several members of the platoon, and with some embarrassment—also as usual now—I was helped to sit down on a wooden bench at a rectangular wooden dining table set against a wall.

"Sjef Ýsa er her. Over," the MJK radioman said into his hand microphone.

"So how are you doing, Chief? Over," I heard from one radio set up among several on the table.

"Fine, Brigader," I assured with equal formality, depressing the button on the microphone the MJK radioman handed me. "My right arm is thankfully out of its cast now, and I only have a few more weeks to go with my leg. Over."

"Good to hear," my cousin replied. "Am I still on speaker? Over."

"Yes. Over," I responded.

"Could you switch to headphones, please, Colonel? I have classified information for your ears only. Over," the radio speaker crackled.

I donned a set that was handed to me by the radio operator seated next to me. "On headphones. Over," I then confirmed as the radioman got up and stepped away as military protocol required in these situations.

"Good, Lance," my cousin now said in a seemingly more relaxed tone. "I wanted to inform you that we will be rotating your MJK unit out of Berk within the next few days, when the weather clears. Over."

"But we lost O'Connell to his unit some weeks ago," I couldn't help sighing now into the hand microphone I was holding. "If we can't keep at least a few of these guys to orient and train the new unit, it will be down to just Roana able to train them in anything besides the Old Norse that our six other remaining Dragon Riders speak. I'm really in no shape to help her yet. Over."

"Your replacement unit will already be somewhat familiarized," my well-placed cousin now assured however. "They are a new FSK unit, comprised entirely of Outside Berkers. Flying with dragons will be about the only thing they won't already be trained and familiar with. The Baroness and her representatives have been working hard to arrange it with the Defence Ministry for the last two months. The Defence Minister and the Chief of Defence have also acceded to the Baroness' request to have me appointed their flag commander, and your wife, Major Lansen, will be their commanding officer. Over."

"Major Lansen? Over," I queried.

"Your outside cover surname now," he replied. "I was told it was given to you both by the Outside Berkers. But this FSK platoon is to be billeted on your island permanently as a shared unit with the Berk Nation," he went on, "with dependents. New Berk will be designated as a classified LFV Air Station, even if it's just a house or two they occupy. Over."

"Well, Roana is rather busy," I hesitantly replied, "with all her other various duties in the village, including her medical ones. Over."

"We realize that," my cousin replied. "She will have an executive officer assisting her in the unit, so her command responsibilities should be light. It was the easiest way to give your tribe recognized command of the unit though, as Roana already has a commissioned rank in the Norwegian armed forces through the FSA. Giving you, a North American, permanent command of an ostensibly Norwegian unit was something that the Defence Ministry in Oslo just was not prepared to agree to at present. Over."

"Understood. Over," I replied.

"Somehow," Gunnar continued, "I felt discovering I was related to you was going to be problematic and cause me more work. Over."

"Funny," I replied with some sarcasm. "But how about my request? How is O'Connell doing? Over."

"That's the other thing," my cousin responded. There seemed to be a long silence now. "Word came back this morning that O'Connell was injured in a clandestined action in support of the Afghan Mujahideen, who inadvertently encountered a Soviet tank column in a mountain valley. He was wounded . . . severely."

I closed my eyes, lowering my head.

"His unit was able to clandestinely medivac him out to an aircraft carrier in the Indian Ocean," Gunnar continued. "They've stabilized him and he is now en route by air to the Landstuhl Military Hospital in Germany. I've been told that he has only a fifty percent chance of living . . . over."

"We want him," I immediately responded, "here—as soon as he's further stabilized in Germany. Over."

"Lance," my cousin sighed on the radio, "it's not that easy. First he's an American citizen and sailor; second, he has some family back in the states, although only cousins now according to what I'm seeing; and third, there's not much of him apparently left. I'm informed he's lost both his right arm and leg, and he may lose his left leg as well. You're in no real position to care for him there at Berk. Over."

"We've performed detailed surgery on Alexi, our Russian defector," I replied, "even on his brain. Over."

"With mixed results I'm told. Over," Gunnar responded.

"We are quite used to and capable of dealing with severe injuries and handicaps here now . . . unfortunately," I continued. "Over."

"But he may wish to return to America, to his family," my cousin countered. "I am not seeing any expressed wishes in his status information, even classified, that he wants to return to Berk. Over."

"He should still have two sashes with him," I responded, "a knight's leather sash like Roana and I wear on ceremonial occasions, and a blue sash with Garrison's medals on it. Over."

"I'm not aware of any of that," Gunnar radioed back. "But it is standard policy among elite services that personal effects be left behind, especially before covert missions so as not to give one's identity or unit away. Over."

I was a bit frustrated now at not having formalized O'Connell's status and wishes when we had the chance as he departed. "Does he still have Garrison's medals with him on a blue sash?" I asked anyway. "He would have carried at least those on his person no matter what, likely in a jacket, even a shirt pocket or pouch. Over."

"I have no idea," Gunnar sighed, "but I will ask. Why? Over."

"Because he accepted those from Dragon Garrison, promising to bring them back," I continued. "That promise was witnessed by the entire village, even the MJK platoon. Further, I made him our first new Dreki Riddari or Dragon Knight, as Roana and I are, hence the knight's sash. He willingly became, and is, a citizen of Berk—the same status as I am, an immigrant. Garrison's medals with him will be proof of that—at least of his intention to return and give them back personally. Over."

"I don't know about this," my cousin sighed, " . . . over," having nothing else to reply with.

"I will take this up with the Baroness," I warned, "and we will initiate a diplomatic action to protect and return what we consider to be our own. Over."

"Please don't do that. Over," Gunnar almost begged on the radio.

"You trust Roana? Over," I radioed.

"Implicitly. Over," he replied.

"Then," I decided on the spot, "she will be travelling out with the MJK platoon, and proceeding to Germany to handle O'Connell and his situation personally, as our emissary—a role she has ably done before. With official diplomatic credentials and top NATO military clearance, no one will be able to deny her access, or ignore her. Just make sure the FSK medic that comes to us can also function as a vet in Roana's absence. Over."

"Do you one better," he replied. "I know that a young Outside Berker has been rushed through vet technician training at the Oslo Zoo . . . specializing in large reptiles. Sheep should be easy for them—don't know whether it's a him or a her though. Whoever it is though is supposed to be flown to my air base and will hopefully arrive in time to join the FSK platoon. Over."

"Accepted," I replied. "Now just wish me luck. Over."

"Why? Over," he wondered.

"Because I haven't asked Roana yet. Over," I noted.

"We'll be ready for a full state funeral here if one is needed. Over," he responded.

"Really funny," I sighed.

— — — — —

"I will ask the Baroness to join me," Roana replied, before I could finish asking her once I was home again. "I'll need her to get me fresh Norwegian military dress and service uniforms anyway. Now I have to remember where my decorations and epaulettes are, if my former self didn't move them around," she continued, turning to already search through her belongings to start packing.

Colour me relieved—_very_ relieved.

Sure enough, a couple days later, the weather cleared and a Royal Norwegian Air Force helicopter was landing in the valley just above our village, at a spot that the dragons had cleared amid the deep snow.

"Some of us," one MJK platoon member stopped to tell me as they passed toward the helicopter, "would like to return when our enlistments are up. I am one of them."

"You realize that would mean giving up a life on the outside," I cautioned.

"Yes sir," the commando forthrightly replied, wearing his battle helmet once more with his winter parka, while toting his weapon on his shoulder along with his gear in a heavy backpack. "But of all the peacekeeping and other missions I've been on," he said, taking a final look around our village, "all the peoples and tribes I've protected . . . protecting this village, this last, ancient Viking village, and these dragons these last few months have come to mean more to me than anything else. For the first time, I envy the unit that is taking over for us. I want to come back . . . and stay."

"I understand," I assured, laying a hand on his shoulder. "It's why I'm here, too—even if I wasn't chief. Just talk with Roana during the flight, tell her we've talked, and she will start making things happen."

"Yes sir," the soldier smiled, saluting, as I was thankfully now able to return his salute with my healed right arm. As he left, I realized I had forgotten to ask him if he was one of the several Outside Berkers clandestinely assigned to this MJK unit that the Baroness had told me about during her last visit. But I figured if he was, he would have told me; if he wasn't, it was better not to ask.

"Tell me what?" my mate smiled, interrupting my thoughts as she came up next to me, toting just a small satchel of personal belongings, but still dressed in Berker winter garb.

"We have our second committed Outsider Dragon Rider, as well as maybe several more," I smiled, glancing at the MJK commando as he now trudged along the rounded, dragon-cleared path through the snow to rejoin the rest of his unit as they boarded the helicopter.

"Third. You were the first, before O'Connell," she countered as she kissed my cheek.

"Gods willing, our own force will be rebuilt," I sighed. "We won't just be dependent wards of Outside soldiers."

"You take this 'chief' job too seriously at times, you know that?" Roana said warmly. "But I love you for doing so," she added as we moved to embrace each other.

"This place, and our people, deserve it," I replied, once more feeling the weight of shepherding Berk, our people and legacy on my shoulders.

Roana just silently held me tightly for a moment in deep gratitude. I could only smile as I embraced her in return, finding myself equally thankful.

"Besides," I added though, lightening things up now as the helicopter nearby was beginning to power up for departure, its blades beginning to spin again, "I wouldn't be your mate, proud warrior and co-chief, if I didn't."

"If you want me to let go of you, you'd better stop," she whispered in my ear.

That made me smile and hold her all the tighter.

"You gonna miss me?" she then queried in my ear.

"I already am," I sighed as loosened our grips and looked at each other again. "But I know it's for a good cause . . . Miles O'Connell."

"The Baroness is on good terms with the NATO Secretary General in Brussels, as well as the NATO Supreme Commander," she replied. "So don't worry, we'll get him here . . . even if it's to pass among his chosen people and tribe."

Our shared gratitude and good feelings were now tinged with sadness.

"I want it to be more than that," I quietly said.

"Me, too," Roana agreed, sharing one last kiss as the helicopter's turbines really started to whine now and we knew she had to go. "But we, you and I, haven't been apart like this since the battle," she then noted.

"Had to happen sometime," I smiled.

"Tana and Rökkr will take good care of you and the family," she added. "You just take care of the tribe, okay?"

"Got it," I replied, still smiling.

"I love you, my Ýsa," she said as we shared a final hug and kiss.

"I love you, too, my Johannsen," I warmly replied.

"Call me Ýsa, too," she said. "I'll be giving birth to one of those, one of these days."

"Roana . . . ?" I wondered with a raised eyebrow.

"Not positive, but I think I might be," she smiled. "I'll have it checked out while I'm on the Outside. Gotta go, my love."

Before I could even react with either surprise or joy, she gave me a quick final kiss and was gone from my arms, being the last person to board the waiting helicopter.

Somehow, Roana had found a way to take my heart with her as I watched that helicopter ascend into the brilliant blue sky. Even though I was surrounded by villagers, and the new FSK platoon executive officer was coming towards me, presumably for an orientation and discussion, I hadn't felt this alone in quite some time now.

— — — — —

The next days were busy yet quiet. Rökkr took to not only flying me up to the dragon caves as needed, but also walking me around the village as I attended to my duties as chief, with me riding in his saddle. I told him that I had already been walking on crutches, and that it was a little embarrassing; but he insisted, even blocking the front door of our house until I would stretch my good leg over his lowered neck and seat myself upon him. That Tana would tack and untack his saddle whenever he asked didn't help.

"Just taking care of pet," Substance would gently remind me when I'd express any frustration over this.

"You're right," I'd smile, finding any resistance in me instantly melting at her words, as I would then compliantly seat myself upon Rökkr's saddle, with Rökkr and Substance then grunting in either satisfaction or conspiracy as they nudged each other before he would bear me out through the door.

Being cared for as a dragon's pet . . . that was still a mind-blowing concept for me. But the more I saw of dragon and human interactions after that one talk with Substance, the truer the idea seemed to be.

Ran, our village physician, continued to check on me at times in Roana's absence—I think mostly to complain, as he kept muttering in Norse during each visit about the new FSK medic almost usurping him in attending to our human population.

"Þú ert læknir okkar, Ran, you're our doctor," I would patiently assure each time, while itching, literally, to get the remaining cast off my right leg.

What made him even more irritable though was having to double in Roana's absence as the village vet and dragon doctor, as the vet tech I had been promised failed to make it to the air base in time to join the FSK's helicopter flight, and the subsequent winter weather was deemed just bad enough to warrant a precautionary further delay until the next flight to bring supplies, or more than just one person. When I talked with him via radio though, this young tech, having apparently been set on a zoological career in a big city until our Outside network leaned on him, didn't seem interested in being driven up to the lifeboat station, and then brought in the now 'old fashioned' way by Dragon Rider.

"I have equipment, belongings and furnishings to bring with me," he had advised on the radio.

Somehow, I had managed to make do coming here on a dragon without all that.

Our new resident FSK, or Forsvarets Spesialkommando, platoon were Royal Norwegian Air Force and not Marines this time—hence my Air Force cousin being appointed this unit's flag commander. As they were all recruited Outside Berker, little if any orientation was needed . . . other than being surprisingly unfamiliar with hearing and speaking our Old Norse. Maybe it was our thick local accent. But I had to do a lot of translating in the beginning, using English as a bridge language as I was not sure of my contemporary Bokmål or Nynorsk, and Outside Norwegians seemed to almost universally speak English as a strong second language.

The FSK initially settled into the house that the MJK had occupied, but these troops were wanting to disperse into other houses so that those who were married could bring their families to the village. Even with all the destruction the battle had wreaked, we still had wound up with two intact houses left empty from our losses, and Tana was willing to volunteer hers as well, now that she was living with my family and would never leave.

So the FSK soldiers drew lots among them, and within a few days, the first three families were flown in by troop helicopter one bright and calm morning with what belongings they could bring, along with our vet tech and his stuff. The children among the dependents, while having grown up with the Journal and dragon stories since infancy, were told that although they were going to have to learn a somewhat new language, they were in for a 'big surprise'.

Sitting on Rökkr, with Substance and Spring beside us, and surrounded by a number of other villagers and dragons of various breeds, I watched as the troop helicopter's rear ramp dropped. The looks on those five children's faces as they saw us for the first time were ones of priceless awe. It was one of those rare times when the wild fantasies of childhood actually did come true.

"Velkommen til Berk. Welcome to Berk," I managed to say to them in both Bokmål and English, as Spring and a number of volunteer host dragons, both young and grown, along with human village children, stepped forward to greet our young new arrivals and invite them to explore and play in the snow. While our Old Norse was likely as difficult for these new children to understand as it was for their parents, and Dragon utterly unintelligible to them—as it still basically was to me—Spring had brought something that needed no translation most anywhere in the world . . . his soccer ball, held within his teeth.

All it took was a gesture of his head off towards the snow-covered valley fields above the village and helicopter landing, and they were all off, dragon and human youth together—trudging, even running through deep snow, trying to toss and catch that ball among them.

Mounted on Rökkr's saddle, I watched them play for a moment. While other places on Earth had problems with race, class, or castes . . . there seemed to be no division among these human and dragon children. They were simply playing ball in the snow. Some had jacketed arms and gloved hands, while others had bare wings and paws. It made no difference to them at all as they soon divided into two equal teams. They even welcomed their differences as the human children gathered around the young dragons; soon figuring out that dragons were good at catching the ball with their wings, while human children were good at throwing it again with their hands—kicking a soccer ball in deep snow being an exercise in almost utter futility. Teamwork. It was what we were all about in Berk.

Meanwhile, village adults, including dragons of course, helped the arriving parents unload their belongings from the helicopter and settle into their new homes. Even though these new arrivals were used to the _idea_ of dragons, having a Nightmare or Zippleback step up and offer to carry a heavy load of belongings on its back from helicopter to house was still enough to make these new arrivals speechless.

Discovering the generous size of our tall Berker houses, which were designed to accommodate dragons after all, as well as typically extended families—the three new families got right into our village spirit, inviting a further three families to come to the island and double up with them for the rest of the winter. So we were able to accommodate six of the ten dependent families of this FSK platoon almost right off the bat. A further village appeal soon saw others volunteering to take in the remaining four.

The young vet tech, however, seemed to expect a house to himself, given his "position" as he informed me. With a degree of pleasure, I not only told him, "No"—more than once, as he began making an almost daily habit of asking me amid his rounds of the village and island—but I had most of his belongings and furnishings crammed into a spare sheep stable, and had him bunk with Frelsari and Helga's family for the time being.

"Vilt þú mennta nýja komu okkar?" I said, quietly asking my Night Fury neighbour and friend to educate this vet tech as to our ways when he agreed to take him in. Frelsari just nodded, looking at his new houseguest nearby with narrowed eyes and a feral smile.

I was going to enjoy monitoring their progress.

With Roana's concurrence by radio, even our household took in a young mother with an eighteen-month old toddler girl, along with the FSK soldier in their family—allowing me a preview of what I'd likely be experiencing one day. We gave them the bedding area in back behind the screen that Roana and I had occasionally enjoyed. With the noise the toddler was making the first night though, I'll admit I was considering asking other villagers to build a loft—a well sealed one—inside our house.

But then our house dragons stepped in.

After grunting to Tana's Zippleback and it had grunted back, nodding both its heads, "Let us have child," Substance suggested to our guest family.

Nervously, the parents surrendered their crying child, still wrapped in her blanket, into the large and seemingly menacing clawed paw that the Zippleback was extending. The child almost miraculously went quiet however, now looking at the two large, round Zippleback heads looking back at her as the dragon held her in its paw, while Rökkr and Spring dragged over a small spare mattress and quilt. The Zippleback gently laid the toddler down on the mattress, then lying down itself and wrapping both its long necks around both the child and mattress, the dragon's heads coming to rest on either side of the toddler.

Now in rapt awe at the dragon attention she was receiving, the young girl soon faded silently off to sleep.

"Enjoy yourselves behind screen," Substance then invited our guest couple. "Your child completely safe and content. We dragons do this for hundreds of years. She sleep soundly with us from now on."

The young mother could hardly seem to believe her good fortune at having dragon childcare, even at home now. She looked lustfully at her husband, probably for the first time since their child had been born as the two soon disappeared behind the screen, illuminated by a single candle.

"Now we sleep," Substance quietly sighed beside me as I lay back down again myself, " . . . most of us," she added as we began hearing amorous rustling going on behind that screen. "Don't worry," my dragon then assured, "we do this for your child. I just can't bend yet around this one."

"So this is how it starts," I quietly wondered, "how humans learn to live and bond with dragons, even to speak their language."

"And has been since Eric's time in the Journal," my dragon confirmed. "Children are raised by both human and dragon parents in village. They school and play with cave dragons, becoming lifelong friends. It makes us one, and makes life easier for all parents. You will help raise children I have, too, just as we help you raise Spring."

I rubbed Spring now, who was lying on my other side in Roana's spot. He was almost asleep with his nearly teenaged-sized leathery black wings and back against me. My chest and abdomen were just fitting underneath the rounded external vertibrae running along his back. I think he relished having me more to himself at night while my mate was gone . . . more father-son bonding. It just struck me once more though—I was raising a dragon, a Night Fury, as my adopted son. Rökkr and Substance were just assisting me as co-parents. Spring looked to me first as his father.

That just blew me away all over again . . . and served to counteract the 'pet' idea somewhat. Substance was right; that was an uncomfortable concept for humans, at least me.

"I still can't believe my great grandfather left all this," I openly sighed though, lying in my bedding and hooking my left arm under Spring's somewhat thick neck and down his front between his forelegs, holding him more tightly against my side and marvelling once more at things here. That Asger could have left all this unique, wonderful sense of family and togetherness, even across species . . . it just struck me as pure insanity.

"He took it for granted," Substance reminded me, lowering her head next to me to rest, "became blinded by pride, by lust for recognition and leadership."

"He wasn't into being cared for by dragons, eh?" I knowingly queried.

"No," Substance agreed. "But Spirit allowed it to be so—used it—so your line could endure, and you could come back to us, with fresh eyes."

"To guide and love you," I said, caressing her eyelids as they closed.

Substance then turned onto her right side. Her wings were almost ready to be released from their bandages, and it apparently no longer hurt her to lie against them. As Rökkr moved to settle himself against Substance as well on her other side, I now extended my right arm under Substance's thick neck like my left arm was under my son's neck, my right hand moving to caress and scratch Substance's upper chest between her forelegs as we fell asleep. Whenever either of us made a reference to sight or eyes now, my dragon companion and I found ourselves being drawn closer together—providing a reason, a meaning for what had happened to her . . . to both of us really.

I lay, tightly sandwiched in between the two most important dragons in my life, my arms wrapped around each of them from underneath, gently rubbing their fronts. If—Spirit and gods forbid—I ever lost Roana, if she died; continuing to raise Spring as my son, and caring for and helping to guide Substance, especially in the air again . . . these would provide me with enough meaning, and love, to go on.

With quiet tears in my eyes, I gave profound thanks to Spirit, God, whomever was responsible for making this so, before falling asleep myself—unable to move in my bedding, even if I had wanted to.

— — — — —

Several days later, an FSK commando approached me on the village commons, as I sat being walked around on Rökkr of course. The soldier was carrying an odd-looking almost phone-like device with an antenna on it.

"Phone call for you, sir," he said, handing it to me.

"What's this?" I wondered, taking it.

"A satellite phone, sir," he replied. "It's tied in via a transceiver in our barracks, and through that dish on our roof," he added, pointing to it. "New technology from the Defence Ministry."

"Is it on?" I wondered.

"Just hit that green button, sir," he pointed. "There's no need to say, 'Over.' Just treat it like a phone call."

So I hit the button and held it to the side of my face. "Hello?" I said. "This is Lance . . . I mean Chief Ýsa," not knowing who it was.

"Lance!" the female voice answered. "It's me, Roana."

"Roana!" I replied. "How are you?"

"We're on our way back," she said, getting right to the point, "leaving the hospital today on an LFV helicopter straight to Berk."

"How is he?" I asked, getting to the point as well.

"On the edge, Lance," she replied soberly, "especially with serious depression over how he is now. The Baroness and I argued, successfully though, that he would have the best motivation and encouragement to recover in our village, with his dragon at his side. They didn't believe us at first, but fortunately the Baroness produced several classified photos of O'Connell proudly standing with and riding Garrison. Those photos showing the medals around Garrison's neck—which O'Connell still did have with him, apparently doggedly refusing to let go of them throughout his treatment—they helped in establishing our claim to him.

"We've crossed him over though," Roana continued. "During one lucid moment, I asked Miles, with physician witnesses present, if he was ready and wished to become fully Berker, and sever ties with the Outside world. He responded that there was nothing out there for him now, not as he was. I told him that Garrison was waiting for him, and then he just said, 'Do it.' So the physicians have certified his death, and he was moved with a sheet over his head to another room in a restricted ward with direct access to a helipad, while his will was modified with his rough, left-handed signature to specify cremation. Ashes, from his own lost limbs, will now be provided to his relatives for burial in the states. He is one of us though, Lance—just like you."

"We'll make it worth his while here," I replied. "You think he should have his own house, with Garrison?"

"The units he's been with—both his SEAL team and the MJK platoon he was living with in the village—they have seemed like family to him," she noted. "So if it's alright with the FSK, I think he would do best living with them at first, as soon as he's able, along with Garrison, of course."

"We'll be ready to make it happen here with the four unmarried FSK soldiers in their house," I assured. "I'll let Garrison know though. He'll be overjoyed. He's even told me through others that he's been making plans and preparations for O'Connell for a while."

"But Lance," my mate added, "Miles has just his left arm remaining now . . . that's it."

I closed my eyes, pausing. "Not unlike some of the rest of us," I finally said. "But he is still a Dragon Knight here. You tell him that."

"I already have," she replied, "even telling him that Garrison is despondent about him, and that Miles must pull through and honour his vow to return to his dragon. He just looked to the ceiling and murmured, 'Yes, m'am.'"

"He's never failed an accepted order yet," I sadly smiled on the phone.

"No he hasn't," Roana agreed.

"When will you arrive?" I asked.

"We'll be there tonight," she replied. "I'm already having the platoon medic prepare for his arrival in the Bunker where Garrison can be with him."

"Involve Ran, please," I requested. "He's going nuts to me feeling that medic is replacing him."

"Ran knows he and I basically don't work together," she coolly replied.

"Doesn't sound very 'Berk-like'," I noted. "So he won't be delivering our baby?"

"Hell no," she confirmed. "Lance, he's obsessive . . . and how did you know I was pregnant?"

"But he's a Dragon Berker," I replied, "and you hinted at it just as you were leaving me for the helicopter."

"Oh yeah," she now recollected.

"Congratulations, sweetheart," I said.

"Well, you did it as much as me," she replied over the radiophone, seemingly with a smile. "But Ran isn't very good at serious trauma cases—terrible bedside manner. I've taken over most of those myself since Alexi."

"But you're not trained as a human physician," I cautioned.

"Guts are guts," she replied, "just in differing locations, with differing temperatures and blood pressures. It's simply diagnosing and fixing plumbing and infections that are pretty much the same otherwise."

"Nice to know I look like a sheep to you on the inside," I quipped.

"And a wonderful sheep you are," she parried right back. "I've got to go though. They're moving Miles to the helicopter. I'll have the LFV pilots provide our FSK unit with updated ETA's as we progress."

"Tell Miles to look for us out the windows," I said. "We'll be there in force for him, literally, in our skies as he arrives."

"That will keep him going more than anything else," Roana assured.

— — — — —

That night, we were in force in our skies again. Cave dragons had adopted the FSK soldiers who were flying with us. I was even aloft, flying solo on Rökkr with Substance's encouragement. Once again, we had radio communication via walkie-talkies and headsets as we flew. Even our six native Dragon Riders carried them, but still preferred using the old hand signals.

Finally in the darkness, the blinking lights of the helicopter came into view in the southeast, crossing the sound from the mainland.

"Take positions. Taka stötu," I radioed while simultaneously raising my left fist and sweeping it forward in the old way for our native riders. In a moment that made me proud again, our Dragon Rider force smoothly banked and surrounded the helicopter in a three-dimensional diamond pattern—the dragons being responsible for that however, with the usual leg press cues from their riders. We had told Garrison in advance that he could take any position he liked. He chose the left side of the helicopter, so Miles could hopefully see him, while I took lead position with Rökkr in front.

"Tell Garrison Chief O'Connell is awake and looking at him. Over," I heard Roana now say on my headset.

"Chief? Over," I wondered.

"It was a posthumous promotion on the Outside," she responded, "along with his Purple Heart, Campaign medal, and Medal of Valor. Over."

"Sounds like he and Garrison are now even. Over," I radioed.

"I've already put them on the new knight's sash the Baroness and I have presented him with in encouragement," Roana answered. "The U.S. Navy is still searching for where the other one got to. Over."

"Typical," I responded. "But repeat this to Rökkr, please, so he can tell Garrison. Over," I concluded as I took off my earpiece and placed it under one of Rökkr's earlobes.

I heard Roana's muffled voice now talking to Rökkr as his eyes shifted, listening. Finally the talking ended and he grunted, looking back at me, indicating I could take the earpiece back. Rökkr then turned his head to the left as we flew and made a series of bellows and loud grunts towards Garrison, who simply nodded, seeming to remain resolutely focused on his duty of protectively escorting the helicopter over our island's southeastern mountains now as we banked left smoothly as one down into the valley.

Other independent dragons joined us in the air for this final descent, while I could see most of the rest of the tribe, both dragons and humans, had turned out around the cleared landing zone above our village. We were welcoming an honoured warrior, one of our own, home.

As we all landed at the upper edge of the village amid a cold but starry night, I noticed our other FSK soldiers who had remained behind had formed into an honour guard, bearing three flags gently flapping in a westerly breeze—Norwegian, American . . . and a new Berker banner I had never seen before. It was square, like one of the ancient sails on Viking ships I had seen pictures of. On its medium blue background, symbolizing the ocean that surrounded us, the banner simply depicted a generalized maroon dragon, so that no one breed was favoured over the others. While I would have expected a dragon in Berk heraldry positioned rearing up on its hind legs and spouting flames from its mouth; the dragon depicted on this banner was standing firm on the ground on its four legs with its wings spread, its gaze fixed forward off to the left and its mouth closed. Similarly, on its shoulders was a Dragon Rider with a sheathed sword. They were at peace, yet on guard together—a very fitting visual depiction of who we were as a people and nation.

I was later told Outside Berkers had designed the banner years ago, and had been wanting to present it to us for some time. The arrival of our permanent FSK unit, and the homecoming of an honoured son, just seemed to be a fitting occasion for its first use.

Soon, as the helicopter's blades and turbines slowed to a stop, its side door was opening. Roana hopped out onto the snow first, followed by the Baroness. Rökkr actually allowed me to get off of him as he and a villager supported me while I then hobbled across the snow to reunite with my mate.

"Lance," Roana warmly greeted me as we embraced amid our thick winter jackets, with her still wearing her major's uniform and green beret underneath.

"Missed you," I finished.

"Missed you, too. But I made a leadership decision in flight," she then told me. "I decided to revive a post that hasn't been active for some time, as Great Guardians have usually just fulfilled its duties . . . telling Miles that, as currently the only other Dragon Knight besides you and I, he is now Lífvartarforingi, Captain of our Guard—our native contingent, anyway."

"That's a decent start," I agreed, "but we'll need more to really lift his spirits, and help him find purpose again."

"His dragon should see to that," she said. "But Lance," she quietly added to me, "he wants to die the way he is now though, feeling that he has nothing to live for with just one arm left."

We turned together to see O'Connell being brought out of the helicopter wrapped in a sheet and blankets on a gurney. His buzz-cut head was free of bandages, but what had happened to him was plain to see as as almost half the gurney was empty; the blankets around O'Connell having been just tucked back under what remained of his upper legs. I briefly closed my eyes, feeling profoundly saddened for him.

Our six remaining native Dragon Riders accepted O'Connell's gurney from the helicopter medics and crew, wanting to truly show him he was one of their own, even their leader—doing it all on their own initiative. I hadn't suggested a thing to them.

His Nightmare, Garrison, then stepped forward with a look of calm devotion in his large eyes. We were all heartened to see O'Connell slowly raise his remaining left hand out of the blankets to touch Garrison, as the dragon carefully lowered his toothy snout to nudge his companion and rider. I thought of Altaff as I watched these two reunite, sending a silent, grateful prayer to him for helping this to happen. As tough as it was for Miles, this was a quietly gratifying moment.

As Roana helped me step towards him, O'Connell then lowered his hand back under his blankets, producing what I could see by the torchlight around us was a folded blue sash.

"I don't have a second arm to put it around you again," he weakly said to Garrison as the dragon gazed at him, "but here it is. I brought it back."

Garrison murmured at him. "It was not the medals he wanted returned to him," we now heard Substance convey as she stepped forward to join us around O'Connell, "but his rider, his companion."

"I can't ride you anymore . . ." we heard O'Connell say, his voice breaking with bitter sadness as Substance grunted in translation for Garrison.

His dragon just gently murmured again. "He says, 'You will,'" Substance translated. "'We will find a way, together.'"

O'Connell now grimaced, his eyes shut tightly as his hand with that blue sash dropped beneath his blankets once more. Even I could see his pain wasn't physical . . . it was emotional. His spirit was clearly broken.

"I've returned, as I said I would," Miles now said, looking away from Garrison, " . . . but only half of me."

The Nighmare then turned his head to the left and grunted. A hooded figure stepped forward with something of a limp, before removing the hood to reveal a beautiful feminine face, gently marred by a few faded scars amid some freckles and framed by long red hair.

"Ilsa . . ." O'Connell recognized looking out of the corner of his eyes as this figure now stood at the side of the gurney he was in, before turning his head away again.

"Miles . . ." this friend of his said with gentle understanding and encouragement as his dragon remained close beside them both.

"I . . . I am not who, or even what I was," O'Connell said, still looking away from her, almost in shame. "I came, mostly to keep a promise to Garrison. That's all. I-I'm ready . . . to let go now."

Seemingly undeterred, Ilsa removed her thick winter gloves and reached a hand under the blankets covering his chest. "Heart beats too strong," she simply said in a thickly accented English.

O'Connell kept resolutely looking away from her however.

"Give me hand," she then said, removing her own from the blankets and holding it above him.

Miles said nothing and made no motion.

"Give me hand," Ilsa repeated. "You gave Garrison hand. Give me hand as vell."

"No," O'Connell replied resolutely.

His Nightmare now grunted at him. "Garrison ask now, too," she conveyed.

"Miles," I added, hobbling closer to him with Roana's help while the Dragon Riders holding his gurney parted to either side for me, "did you come all this way, back from even death itself . . . just to shut us all out?"

A tear fell from O'Connell's resolute eyes as he slowly raised his one remaining hand again from beneath the blankets.

Ilsa took that hand, slowly but firmly, with both her own. "This still you," she said.

"Garrison ask me help care for you," she then continued. "He not able by self. No front legs—although he hatch that vay. I missing one leg, too . . . from battle . . . battle you save me in. You find me on ground. You bind my vounds, my burns; hold me screaming on your knees, as you fire gun again, not leaving until you get medic to come.

"I not forget that, Miles," Ilsa said, still holding his one hand. "Allow me to bind vound," she asked, reaching one of her hands underneath his blankets again to his chest, " . . . in here."

His eyes now openly revealing his inner pain, O'Connell turned his head toward Ilsa. She took him into a powerful kiss before he could say no, or anything else, as his one remaining arm and hand arced up around the back of her head in acceptance.

Garrison then raised his large head, bellowing a long and loud roar as the rest of the village began somewhat subdued roaring and applause around us.

The dragon may have been a little premature in proclaiming O'Connell's and Ilsa's mating, but neither I nor anyone else was going to argue the point. This Nightmare knew that more than anything, Miles needed the sustaining love of a mate and family of his own. Both Ilsa's demeanour, and O'Connell's reactions, made it clear that they had already been seeing each other a fair amount prior to his departure anyway. She had now willingly become Garrison's 'welcome home' gift to his rider and companion, someone they would both need in the days ahead.

Miles O'Connell was home though, surrounded by a new, loving mate, and his dragon . . . the most important things we in Berk could give him as he began his recovery and adjustment to a new and different life.

We were just going to have to gently break it to his head what his heart was probably already realizing.


	37. Chapter 37

_Note_

_Because I try to observe the Twelve Days of Christmas, rather than the Thirty-Four or more Shopping Days before Christmas that America seems obsessed with, and because dragons don't care about dates, with Substance even admitting they aren't good at counting; here is a contemporary version of their Yule at New Berk, still just in time for Twelfth Night . . ._

— _Norwesterner_

* * *

><p>Despite the almost sub-zero cold, Ilsa and Miles seemed impervious to it as they lingered in their kiss, with him lying blanketed in his gurney outside the helicopter he had arrived in while the rest of our village and tribe looked on around them. O'Connell's arrival home at New Berk made it finally start to feel like Yule on the island.<p>

Ilsa finally released him from their embrace as his hand fell back from her head. O'Connell looked at her uncertainly though. "I can't do this to you," he said.

"Too late," she smiled, warmly caressing his face.

"Too late?" he wondered.

"Too late," I agreed, smiling as I moved to bring their hands back together. "Your dragon has proclaimed it."

"Proclaimed what?" he asked, before his own experience and knowledge of Berker ways began to kick in again. "Wait," he hesitated, "you don't mean . . ."

"Yes, Miles," I said, still holding their hands together in mine, "we do."

"_Mating?_" Miles quietly exclaimed in astonishment, turning his head to look fully at me.

"Just as with a Dragon Rider's very first flight, our people celebrate the beginnings of things here," I told him, "not their culminations, and certainly not endings. I had almost the same kind of 'shotgun wedding,' practically the moment I lowered my guard towards Roana. Trust me, it's good though."

Miles looked back towards Ilsa and then down, seeming to process and almost weigh things. Then he began to almost ruefully smile. "Garrison?" he wondered, looking at his Nightmare while still speaking to me as his dragon looked calmly at him.

"Garrison," Ilsa confirmed before I could as she stroked the side of O'Connell's disbelieving face, while the dragon beside them both had a very pleased look in his eyes.

"He knew what you would need, and made it happen," I smiled as I held the new couple's hands together on O'Connell's blanketed chest. "Isn't it better to be cared for by your own family now who loves you," I added, "rather than by nurses you don't know, in a place that isn't home to you? That is the gift your dragon, and your mate, if you'll accept her, are giving you."

O'Connell's mouth slowly relaxed into a subtle smile as a tear formed in one eye. "But, what I am now . . . it doesn't—?" he wondered.

"This doesn't matter," I finished, touching his truncated right shoulder and bandaged stub of an upper arm directly.

"Ve take you special place, Miles," Ilsa said before adding, "Ek tek hann," to the rest of us, reverting to Norse as she began hefting him into her arms, blankets and all. While Ilsa was a strong and slightly curvy Viking woman, and Miles may have been missing a right arm and both legs; he wasn't light for her, as he still had a powerful torso that was a little larger than Ilsa's—especially as she was balancing him with just one good leg and a primitive prosthetic.

O'Connell, once the unflagging, always optimistic, 'can do' SEAL of our village—he now looked at Ilsa, Garrison and the rest of us gathered around him as the Dragon Riders moved out of the way with the gurney he had arrived on. O'Connell's eyes finally settled on me, but now with an aching sadness.

"I'm sorry, sir," he sniffed, "I'm so sorry . . ."

"No," I said now to him as I moved to embrace both Miles and Ilsa while Roana and others gathered close around us in a supportive and communal embrace as well. "You are part of us, Miles. You _are_ us . . . and we will never, ever let you go now."

Together, as a village, even a tribe, we shed some tears with Miles over his loss, his change. We accepted him into us, as he was. Hopefully, somehow, he would begin to accept himself as well.

"Fyrir því drekar, Miles," I finally said, moving to Miles' right side and helping Ilsa to bear his weight. "That's your new mission, Chief, as Captain of our Guard, of our Dragon Riders. We've missed you, and we need you . . . just as you are. Can you do it?"

O'Connell now lifted his face from amid Ilsa's flowing red hair on the side of her head. "Yes, sir," he said, turning to look at me. "Yes, I can."

"Enjoy your homecoming . . . and wedding night," I concluded with a smile.

He looked at Ilsa again as she looked warmly at him. His bare left arm was now about her shoulders, helping her to balance him amid the cold night air. He could only nod silently now as his mate moved to share another kiss with him.

Garrison then grunted, gesturing with his head back towards his neck, now with a saddle on it that had been placed there by other Dragon Riders, in addition to his blue sash with its medals, which two Riders had refastened around the Nightmare's neck once more as well. All the Riders now stood on either side of the saddle, ready to help Ilsa and Miles into it. Having to cradle him among them for a moment as Ilsa mounted the saddle wearing her thick winter garments and long, sealskin dress, the other riders kept assuring Miles, "Þat er mikill heitur," or, 'It is an honour.' As the other riders positioned and strapped him in the saddle, Roana quickly proceeded to brief Ilsa on what she would need to do to care for Miles, while also giving him a couple of injections and pills for the night. Within a moment, Miles was ready to go, even secured to Ilsa behind him with extra leather straps for added safety. I was sure an improved dragon-riding rig would be developed for him soon enough.

The rest of us then stood back as Garrison, along with several independent dragons, all spread their wings and took off with Miles and Ilsa into the air, turning over the village and then heading east off to the dragon caves at the head of our valley.

"The dragon caves," I sighed, shaking my head with a little reservation as the rest of us watched them fly away. "Really think you should have let him go there like he is?" I wondered to Roana beside me.

"Ilsa's right," my mate replied. "O'Connell's remaining body is fairly strong. It's his mind, his attitude that has been weakening him. He has literally trying to will himself to die at times. Reminding him of his promise to Garrison was about the only thing that kept bringing him out of that. The dragon caves are known as the best place of healing among our tribe. Spirit is said to be stronger among them there than anywhere else. That's why Alexi's dragon took him there at first. But did you know about Ilsa?"

"Nope," I replied, smiling. "Garrison did that all on his own."

"Dragons know what they're doing, don't they?" my mate smiled as well as we embraced.

"Perhaps I could use a dragon's help," we both quietly heard beside us.

"Jarldis," I said, turning towards the Baroness beside us. She was elegantly turned out as always—this time in a dark blue winter coat with a warm hood—as Roana and I added her to our embrace. "We have a full house now, hosting an FSK family, but would you stay? I'm sure we can find you an empathic dragon to talk with in the morning."

"No," she declined as the Royal Norwegian Air Force helicopter began powering up again. "I need to return to the Outside, especially as the Barony is now paying for your FSK family and the rest of the unit to be here, not to mention this helicopter."

I looked at her with some surprise.

"How do you think we got the unit here?" she continued. "And got Roana and your cousin put in command? Money, pure and simple—as my predecessors have long done to protect all of you on this island. We just don't bribe anymore. Simply offering to pay for things is more effective anyway."

"Sure you won't stay?" I invited again anyway.

"Maybe in summer," she said. "The idea of basically camping here in winter just isn't very appealing."

"Has the world gone soft?" I wondered. "This isn't camping. I live here, year round now."

"No, Lance," the Baroness smiled, laying a hand to my face, "you've gone hard—become Viking. And I could not be prouder of you."

As Roana drew close beside me in admiration as well, that struck me. I was seen as a 'hard' Viking now. I was no longer one of them, an outsider. A primitive Viking, who relished rough conditions—could that really be me?

The Baroness now turned to leave, but not before she was stopped by Substance and given a firm, heartfelt nudge.

"You come back," my dragon simply said. "I want talk with you."

Even I could tell that made the Baroness' day now as she bent to embrace Substance's large head.

As she rose again, I remembered. "Bar—I mean Jarldis," I corrected myself, "have you dealt with the special request I sent to your office by fax via the FSK?"

"We're arranging helicopter transport for it now," she said, turning back towards me again. "It should be here in six days, and most every farmer in the Barony expresses their thanks for the order."

"What's that?" Roana asked me as the Baroness once again turned to board the waiting helicopter.

"Just helping our own," I replied, " . . . and my own Yule surprise."

— — — — —

Soon, Roana and I were home, finding our young FSK mother sharing a late night snack of Viking sweet bread with her toddler on a wooden chair next to our house fire, before laying her daughter down between the welcoming necks of Tana's Zippleback again. As it had been doing on previous nights, the dragon smoothly took over, with one head first gently murmuring, and then almost singing to the toddler with a soothing hum, while the other head tucked the little girl in, drawing a quilt over her just right. The toddler was quietly falling asleep right before our eyes.

"I never thought dragons vould bring her such peace," the mother almost whispered to us in Norwegian-accented English as we three now quietly stepped away, not wanting to disturb the quiet scene, while the Zippleback laid its own heads down on either side of the girl again. "I have read the Journal, vith my husband, but the portrayal of dragons everyvhere else . . ."

"Were you born Outside Berker?" Roana wondered.

"No," she smiled. "I vas born and raised in Stavanger. I just married an Outside Berker . . . after a fairly thorough set of interviews and background checks—vhich I thought vere for the Norvegian military. But vhen they began giving me orientations, it vas all for you, your people."

"So what do you think of us now?" I wondered.

"My daughter vill live a very different life here," the mother said, looking around.

"If she chooses all this," Roana noted, removing the hood of her coat but still wearing her red military beret with its badge, along with her uniform. "It is a choice, with all of us, to be here. But if she grows up on this island, and chooses to leave for school or adult life on the outside, she will never leave our community and network, no matter where she goes."

"I vas made aware of that, just before ve came here," she replied. "You know, my family vas probably your enemy at one time. Ve vere from Trondheim originally, the royal city . . . even possibly in the court of the ancient Norse kings, from what a geneologist cousin has told me. To that cousin and the rest of my family now though, my husband and I are at a remote research station. I have been told that if ve decide to stay, our deaths vill be faked to all outside the Barony."

"How are you feeling about that?" my mate asked.

"Conflicted," the woman sniffed. "I can see vhy it is necessary, but . . ."

Her husband now came in the door, having finished his duties for the evening. "Sir, m'am," he nodded smartly, briefly saluting as he passed us, compelling Roana and I to salute in return out of courtesy, before he proceded to shed his parka and green beret, moving beside his wife.

"Please," Roana said, "inside our house and off duty, it's Lance and Roana, okay? He hasn't been making you salute him in here behind my back, has he?" she added now looking my way, fortunately with a subtle smile.

"It's the FSK training," the man shrugged with a smile as well. "But it is a pleasure to finally meet you, Roana. I'm Tor, and this is my wife, Arna," he added as they shook hands.

"Your Executive Officer," I added.

"Yes, m'am," he confirmed.

"Well," Roana seemed to note with indifference now, "it's nice to have command all in one place."

"I waited until all the other dependent families were situated before bringing my own over," he uncomfortably added, "but when the chief made this house available as well . . . it just wasn't right billiting enlisted with our commanders."

"Outsider protocols," my mate sighed. "Well you won't find me in this uniform much at all, and we've had little distinction among ourselves before. But again please, off duty it's first names, alright? Lance doesn't like being constantly addressed as 'Chief' or 'sir' anymore than I do with 'Major' or 'm'am'."

Substance, Spring and Rökkr then came in from the cold as well. "Walllk. Hjálllp m-mamma beturrr." Spring explained, using both English and Norse, as Substance turned and seemed to guide herself to our bedding as Rökkr and Spring just turned beside her without touching her.

"Mjög gott, Spring, very good!" I warmly praised my dragon son, before turning back to our houseguests. "He's using English and Norse interchangeably now—the first triligual dragon ever. At his current pace, I would even like to see him go to university, were that possible," I added, glancing back with pride at my dragon son.

"I still can't quite get used to that," Tor quietly noted to Roana and I, looking at our dragons as they all turned towards our bedding.

"They have very good hearing," I almost whispered back, "and all three of them understand English."

"Løytnant," Substance said, stopping and turning her large head back towards us, getting our houseguest's notice and causing him to instinctively stiffen to attention. "Tor," she then softened, "you are on forefront of humanity, its next step . . . learning to live with another intelligent species, as equals."

"Yes . . . m'am," Tor stammered a bit.

"I am Substance," my dragon replied in her deep voice. "Please call me that."

"Some can also seem to read minds," I smiled.

"As Guardian," Roana noted, "she is your superior here as well."

"Substance devised the battle plan to retake this island, and led the attack charge with me," I added. "She was even offered a knighthood by the King himself, but has refused it because its namesake was a mortal enemy and persecutor of our tribe and dragons."

"The Order of Saint Olaf?" he wondered, amazed.

"Yes," I quietly confirmed.

"I had no idea . . ." Tor said in awe.

"Sorry I haven't told you everything yet," I apologised with a slight smile.

"This is a different society than perhaps any other on Earth," Roana noted to our guest couple. "Just remember that dragons are not just legends or secrets to be protected—they are equals, neighbours, friends, even family to us on this island. We answer their requests, even take orders from them when appropriate, just as surely as you and I would among each other.

"Settle in with us for a while," she invited. "Then ask yourselves if you want to give all this up. That will help you make your decision on staying here. Pass this on to the rest of our unit and their families. But sleep well for now."

"Yes, m'am," our Executive Officer or 'X.O.' replied, saluting.

"Tor . . ." my mate reminded him.

"Goodnight, Roana, Lance . . . and Substance," he nervously responded.

"Don't forget my adopted dragon son, Spring, or Roana's companion and Substance's mate, Rökkr," I quietly added, "not to mention Tana's Zippleback, Tvö Höfut, who is taking care of your daughter."

"Sorry, sir," Tor stammered again. "Uhh . . . goodnight Spring, Rökkr, and Tvö Höfut."

"'Night," Spring replied, " . . . thannk youu."

That stopped Tor and Arna as they were turning towards their bed. The couple just gazed at Spring and Rökkr for a moment as the two dragons looked back at them.

"They feel, even think, basically everything we do," I quietly said, "maybe even more. They have their own language, mythology and spirituality. Given a chance, a dragon will tell you in which direction other countries are from here, and Substance can quote famous figures from human history. I am even discovering that Night Furies at least have larger brain to body mass ratios than humans, dolphins, or other primates. They may have intelligences and capabilities we don't. Substance certainly seems to."

"Why hasn't this been shared with the Outside, at least within the Barony?" Tor asked, still seeming stunned.

"Because Berk has been almost totally closed off from the Outside, even the Barony," I replied, "and I've only been making these observations and discoveries within the past few months. I could have been writing earth-shattering scientific papers on all this, but I've just been too busy helping us recover from war and survive here."

"That should be part of our job, sir," he replied.

"I would appreciate if it was, Løytnant," I responded somewhat curtly, as Roana placed a hand on my chest to both caution and soothe me. "I mean Tor," I added. "I'm sorry."

"I'm told war does that to us, sir," he empathised. "I'm sorry I missed it. I was on deployment with a UN mission, before I was suddenly called back and asked by both a general and the Baroness to help form and train this platoon."

"This could be your last posting," I said, looking at him, "if you choose. Here there is meaning, as well as orders and duty. It's a rough assignment amid primitive conditions," I finished, looking at Roana with a gentle smile, "but nothing has come to mean more to me. Nothing."

"My wife and I will think about it," Tor pledged. "Goodnight again, sir, m'am, and dragons."

"Goodnight," Roana and I bade them, just accepting his instinctive formality now as Tor and his wife then turned, glancing down at their daughter, who already seemed to be completely at home sleeping within the Zippleback surrounding her. The couple then went off to their own bed behind the screen.

"Never stops, does it?" I whispered in Roana's ear as we turned and walked to bed down with our dragons. "Leading," I clarified as she looked at me.

"At least we have each other," she sighed, as she stopped us to add a couple more logs to our house fire for the night before we continued to our family bedding.

"You look good in uniform," I admired as she finally shed her military-issue winter parka. It was true. The service dress green slacks and light blouse she was wearing followed and revealed her slender figure much better than her Berk tunics, leather vest and skirt, and leggings usually did.

"But I don't _feel_ good in this uniform," she quietly replied, trying to keep our conversation private as she undid her green necktie. "I had forgotten how Outside military life is," she continued as she shed the rest of her confining Outsider clothing with visible relief and hanging it all up on wooden pegs driven into a wall above our bedding near the front door, " . . . having to constantly return salutes in hallways, keeping my hair done up, wearing skirts with pantyhose. Uggh. I hadn't shaved my legs in a long time."

"I hadn't noticed," I innocently replied as I just lowered myself onto our bedding with my crutches next to our dozing dragons now.

"At least these berets weren't too bad," she continued, hanging that up on a peg, too as she gradually released her long hair from the numerous bobby pins that had been holding it.

After she finished undressing herself, "Pass me your clothes," she then matter-of-factly invited, " . . . all of them."

After enjoying her little show, I did as I was told with a smile, but I let her kneel down and remove my pants over my leg cast.

"You've been sleeping in these while I've been gone, haven't you?" she then remarked as she rose again to hang my clothes up.

"I'm a hard Viking now," I shrugged. "Even the Baroness has said so. And it was a little cool in bed without you wrapped around me."

"Well, my Viking _and_ his clothes," Roana decided, "are getting washed tomorrow. But as for warming up, slide over."

Then there she was again—that warm, soft presence against me I had missed so much. I just breathed deeply now as I savoured Roana in full, before my hand drifted down along her side, as I remembered what was now underneath her skin.

"Pregnant, eh?" I noted, caressing her side.

"Yep," she confirmed. "Six weeks, according to the doctor. You ready for it?" she asked, kissing my cheek.

"I will be—in seven and a half months," I smiled.

"Gods . . ." my mate sighed against my shoulder, "from just vet and knight, waking up one morning as a mate, then finding myself a warrior in battle, becoming a leader of our tribe, now a unit commander, and mother on top of the rest of it all—Lance . . ." she sniffed, overwhelmed, burying her head against my neck.

"Shhhh . . ." I soothed, holding Roana close and rocking her a little under our quilt. "That's what mates are for—so we're not doing it all alone."

"I'd run away if I was," she quietly sighed. "But I know the dragons wouldn't let me."

"We wouldn't," Substance confirmed next to us, "anymore than I would allow myself to fly away."

"Lance," Roana almost whispered, looking at me now, "would you remind me why I'm doing all this?"

With a smile, I rolled us both over, and proceeded to remind her . . . passionately.

"Hmmmm, hmmmm!" she soon agreed amid our kissing.

We were good now, and everything was once again alright.

— — — — —

The next morning, after receiving a very satisfying scrubbing from Roana, still amid sheepskins on our bedding though given my leg cast; it was flying up to the dragon caves on Rökkr to check on O'Connell, even if Roana and I might be interrupting his honeymoon.

As we entered the steamy, geothermally heated cave, we passed around the dragons' large evergreen Yule tree now planted at its entrance.

"They really do celebrate Yule here," I remarked, looking up and down at the tall but unadorned Evergreen tree.

Roana sighed next to me, rolling her eyes. "Dragons have been putting Yule trees in this very spot," she matter-of-factly noted, toting her medical satchel on one shoulder, "centuries before Prince Albert brought the tradition of Christmas trees from his native Saxony to Queen Victoria's Britain some one hundred, fifty years ago."

"Well it's new for me, alright?" I almost snapped in response.

"I keep forgetting that at times . . . on my own," she smiled in apology.

"I'm sorry, too," I replied as she slipped her sheepskin-mittened hand through my arm, supporting me while I resumed hobbling along on my crutches as we ventured onwards into the caves, past dragons nested and huddled against one another all around us.

To my surprise, we soon found Ilsa dressed in just an undertunic without her leg rig on, tending a kettle and small cauldron, both hung by a simple wooden frame over a fire. Next to her, Garrison was curled around O'Connell, watching him, as Miles was snugly wrapped in a virtual pile of sheepskins and quilts.

"How are you doing?" I dared to ask as the three of them spotted us approaching.

O'Connell just rolled onto his right side, reaching his left hand towards Ilsa. "I've been apologizing to her all night," he said with a smile as she warmly reached back, taking his hand.

"He tough patient, at first," Ilsa smiled. "But he finally let me in bed."

"I was so afraid she'd be repulsed at me, as I was," he sighed. "But then it just . . ."

"Flowed, happened," I smiled.

Roana just smiled as well while she proceeded to check O'Connell's heart and breathing with a stethoscope from her medical kit. "Your heart rate and lungs are much stronger this morning, Miles," she assured.

"I'm no longer wishing myself dead," he admitted. "But I so wish I'd just gotten out of the way of that tank shell," he sniffed. "'Cause it didn't do Tom a bit of good anyway . . ."

He now broke down as Ilsa turned to take him into her arms. I saw O'Connell's scarred and bandaged stump of a right arm trying to flex and reach to embrace his mate.

"This will take the longest to heal," Roana gently said to both of them as O'Connell sobbed uncontrollably against Ilsa for a moment, while she held and rocked him.

"We know . . ." Ilsa replied sadly as well. "But Miles know I not let go, ever. Proved that, right?" she said warmly to him.

"It's why I've been apologizing," he sniffed, his tears diminishing.

"So you're not minding the dragon-arranged marriage?" I smiled.

"No," he said, gazing at his mate now.

"If you're both happy here," I suggested, "just stay for a while. Talk anything and everything out. We'll even arrange for delivered meals and firewood if you like. Just heal, Miles. Then, when you're ready, let us know. Because while we've had a solemn Yule Log observance that you helped with before you left, I've been saving a more festive Yule celebration . . . for your return."

"Sir . . ." he replied, almost in objection.

"If you want to help me out," I added, "maybe time your re-emergence here with the next supply helicopter flight. It's due in five days, weather permitting."

"Then please deliver forecasts," O'Connell replied, "along with the meals and wood. I don't want Ilsa working hard either."

His redheaded mate now settled herself into their bedding, drawing the sheepskins and quilts over both of them as she just cradled him against her.

"This is the medicine he has needed," Roana smiled.

"I know," Ilsa agreed, looking at Miles.

"I used to be taller than her," he quipped.

"And you still are, Dreki Riddari mínn," Ilsa assured, "vith the giant soul."

The two then moved to kiss one another.

"Let's go," Roana whispered to me. "Ilsa has things well in hand here."

As Ilsa continued to quietly soothe and even romance Miles against her, Roana, Rökkr and I quietly made our exit amid the many other dragons out of the cave.

"So this upcoming celebration, and the order, whatever it is, is for Miles?" Roana wondered next to me once we were outside the caves and I was remounting Rökkr's saddle.

"It's for all of us," I cryptically replied.

Roana just looked at me, inquisitively smiling as she remounted Rökkr in front of me, and he took off with us.

— — — — —

I had the whole village guessing at this Yule surprise of mine, and I relished keeping them, even Roana, guessing for four more days. The FSK radioman was the only other person within the village who knew, and I had ordered him sworn to secrecy. I just felt this was my chance to really bring the magic of Yule, what I had grown up celebrating as Christmas, to this new family and tribe of mine.

Finally, the day came. It wasn't quite December 25th, but I didn't care, and no one else but the FSK soldiers and families even knew to care. I had directed that two bonfires be built, that cooking fires be made as well, and cauldrons brought out for hot cider.

But this time, none of it was at the village. That was part of my surprise. Instead, it was all done at the entrances to the dragon caves. That would be our village commons for a change. I didn't want those dragons who were handicapped to have to limp a mile or more again down our valley in the snow to join in the festivities. We were bringing it all to them this time.

Finally, as the sun set in early afternoon, almost as soon as it had risen, all was in readiness. To formally open our Yule feast, I had convinced Substance to arrive in style. Getting her up to the dragon caves had seemed a daunting challenge, given she wasn't recovered enough to fly there yet. But then, she remembered a legend.

"Outside Berk children told that Great Guardian watch over them," she said. "Your ancestors' visit to Outside village at Yule reinforce that story, even basis of their celebration. Amund share that with me, as we study world Yule traditions, starting with our own Outside tribe."

"So we recreate that for our own people?" I smiled.

"First Ýsa to do so, in long time," she agreed.

So as a family, we decided to recreate that one Yule, when Hiccup, Toothless and their family journeyed to the Outside to bring Yule cheer to a part of their tribe that was adjusting to life among other Norse. I suppose we could have gone in character as Hiccup's family, but both Roana and Substance decided we should just go as ourselves.

"You, your return and victory in battle—that our Yule blessing and miracle, Lannce," my dragon companion suggested. "You need not be anyone else. You what our people want to celebrate."

"Substance . . ." I mildly hesitated, albeit looking down with a smile of modesty.

"Be what our people want to celebrate," Roana now echoed as well, extending her arms around me from the side. "We could use a returning legend who is willing to be our modest conquering hero."

"It was a fluke though," I sighed, " . . . so much of what I did in that battle. Anyone could have shot those enemy commandos."

"Would it make you feel better if I asked you to be our Jól Nisse or 'Yule Elf', Norway's version of Santa Claus?" Roana smiled. "They'd rather have their Chief Ýsa though, bringing their own legend to life. They deserve it, especially this year, don't you think?"

— — — — —

So, a contingent of four Dragons and Riders, led by Roana and Rökkr, hoisted Substance into the air using a pair of long, thick, crossed leather slings gripped in their claws—with me sitting astride her in our saddle no less—as they flew us up to the dragon caves. It was not the way Hiccup, Toothless and their family made their Yule flight as described in the Journal; but it was a sight, even a show, our tribe would never forget as Substance and I were landed amid horns, roars and great fanfare in front of our tribe gathered around the two large bonfires burning just outside the entrances to the dragon caves.

No sooner had we landed however, than the heavy beat of blades from three troop helicopters could be heard in the background as a separate contingent of Native and FSK Riders and Dragons escorted the aircraft over our mountains and down to the landing area we had prepared for them in the open snow outside the dragon caves as well. Seeing our Dragon Riders being employed to the full again, on two separate assignments no less . . . for some reason, that brought me deep joy.

I now had an irrepressible smile on my face as the three large, twin-rotored helicopters descended and then pivoted smartly, facing away from us as they landed, guided by three FSK marshallers waving wand flashlights, with the aircraft throwing up clouds of powdered snow and providing one last veil of mystery as their turbines powered down and their rotors slowed to a stop.

I hobbled out in front of the helicopters now on my own with crutches, at my insistence, facing our entire tribe, both dragon and human, still with that smile on my face.

"Everyone. Allir," I said in my accustomed bilingual way, "we have had a hard year. Vit höffum át erffit ár. When I was young, þegar ek var ungur, a neighbour woman died from a farming accident, nágranni kona lést úr búskap slys. Her husband and son were devastated. Eiginmatur hennar og sonur voru rúst. So my family brought Yule to them. Svo fjölskylda mínn leiddi jól vit þá. We wiped away their sadness, even healed them. Vit þurrka burt sorg þeirra, jafnvel gróa þá. That is what Yule is about to me—wiping away old sadnesses, making room for new joys. Þat er þat sem jólin er um at mér—burstun burtu gamla sorg, gera pláss fyrir nýja gleti. And I can think of no greater joy than the return of Miles O'Connell, and the creation of his new family with Ilsa and Garrison. Ek get hugsat ekki meiri gleti en endurkomu Miles O'Connell, og sköpun nýrra fjölskyldu sinni met Ilsa og Garrison!"

Widespread cheering and roaring interrupted me at that point, as Garrison stepped forward with Miles and Ilsa mounted on his neck. Both Rider and Dragon were wearing their sashes and medals—heroes and respected warriors among us. O'Connell now proudly waved to the crowd around him, raising his left arm, as he was held from behind by Ilsa, and their dragon bellowed underneath them as well.

As the cheering died down and the new O'Connell family resumed their place among the assembled crowd, I beckoned for Roana and my family, including Tana and her Zippleback, to come and join me.

"But there is another joy to be celebrated. En þat er annar gleti til at vera haldin," I continued, " . . . the coming birth of a new Ýsa, between Roana and I, á komandi fætingu nýs Ýsa, milli Roana og ek!"

The roaring and cheering resumed again. Roana just turned and leaned against me a little embarrassed, but smiling, as I held her tightly.

"So, svo," I resumed as the roar of the assembled tribe died down once more, "I can think of no better way of celebrating these two joys, as well as the joy of our survival, ek get hugsat engin betri leit til at fagna þessum tveimur gleti, sem og gleti á ævilíkum okkar; than to give us all a very special gift, en at gefa okkur öllum mjög sérstaka gjöf."

I wanted to keep the suspense and guessing going as long as possible, but the helicopters' ramps were now dropping. I noticed though that Substance was now turning her head towards me, smiling.

"So I have arranged, svo ek hef rata þeim," I concluded, "for enough fine beef for every human and dragon here, fyrir nógu fínn nautakjöt fyrir hvert mönnum og dreka hér! Happy Yule! Let the feast begin! Gletilegt jól! Láttu hátít byrja!"

"My gods," Roana exclaimed amid the renewed cheering and roaring around us as villagers and military alike now proceded to begin unloading the frozen sides of beef from all three helicopters to be roasted or just thawed as the case may be, along with crates of apples and cinnamon to make cider with. "You must have cleared out the Barony's entire herds of cattle," she sighed in wide-eyed wonder.

"I had the Baroness buy all our Outside ranchers had to sell, aside from their existing orders," I replied.

I looked around as the roasting of beef commenced over the open cooking fires, and the dragons took turns thawing their sides of frozen beef for one another while human villagers mounted those sides on roasting spits for the dragons as well. When I hatched this plan, I had almost gone with ordering actual reindeer from the Sami tribespeople, as reindeer were range-farmed animals in the Finnmark lands of Norway, Sweden and Finland to the north of us, just as cattle were elsewhere. But remembering Gene Autry and his song about 'Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer' that I had grown up hearing in Manitoba, even though that song and story were not widely known here . . . I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Seeing whole sides of frozen beef being carted around me—tons of the stuff—was bad enough.

"Never had beef before," Substance noted beside me. "Like deer?" she wondered.

"Yeah, it's probably like deer," I replied.

"Hiccup had problems with deer and meat," my dragon noted. "His son, you are."

"Maybe next year," I replied, kneeling down on my good leg and extending my arm over her large, black neck.

Substance then proceeded to take care of my conflicted concerns soon enough, issuing a loud bark amid the crowd as the first sides of beef were ready to be served and consumed by both dragons and humans.

"We give thanks," she simply said in English, grunting the same in Dragon, before she raised her head and started humming with her deep, powerful voice.

Everyone, human and dragon, villager, FSK and dependent, closed their eyes and raised their heads as well, beginning to hum in harmony with Substance.

At first, seeing all those sides of beef being handled . . . it had once more made me again consider becoming vegetarian, out of a sense of guilt more than anything else. But as I prayed with my head raised and eyes closed, humming along with Substance next to me, and the rest of my family around me as well, I felt a strange sense of harmony. "We all die. We are all eaten by something," both Roana and Substance had told me before. I realized that even vegetables give up what lives they had known as they are chopped and boiled or roasted for our benefit—with some studies I had been reading on the outside noting that plants had begun to be observed subtly reacting to certain positive and negative stimuli, as only living things could. Amid my closed eyes, I now almost saw the herds of cattle nodding down at us. I could even see the dragon flames that would one day be consuming my earthly body.

It all became one. Life was one. I now felt it went on . . . just changing form; sometimes on its own, sometimes with assistance. The trick, I realized, was living well, and treating others well, no matter whom or what they were, while they lived. Life on Earth involved consuming other life. It was just set up that way by Spirit, and could not be helped or avoided . . . unless a way could be found for every kind of animal or human to just live off ingesting nutrients from rocks, dirt, water and sunlight—as plants did.

I held Roana tighter as we hummed with everyone else in prayer. A new life would be joining us before long from Spirit. That was one gift I would be celebrating from this Yule right to the next . . . and for many Yules beyond that.

The humming eventually ceased. I opened my eyes as Roana and I continued to hold each other tightly as festivities resumed under a cold, starry winter sky.

"You did good here," she simply said with a smile.

"Thanks," I modestly replied.

"You'll get my Yule gift to you later," she then whispered in my ear, " . . . me, while I can still give you all I've got."

My beautiful, blonde, Viking mate for Yule? "I could ask for nothing better," I smiled. It was the truth—I really couldn't.

"Mmmmmmm!" I heard sighed in a deep voice next to me, as Roana briefly parted from my side now, while I saw Substance and Rökkr both tearing into a side of thawed raw beef that he had brought for them both to share. "Better than fish! Better than deer!" my dragon said with relish.

"I think you've introduced our dragons to a new, and pretty expensive dining habit," Roana smiled as she now brought back a nicely roasted slab of beef, along with some steaming vegetables, all on a pewter plate for us to share.

"Mmmmmm," I now sighed as well, seeing our meal, "already slathered in gravy. Haven't had beef and gravy in ages now."

"Just thank the Canadian and British contingents I dined with while I was staying at that military hospital in Germany," my mate replied. "I saw them putting gravy on everything—the Canadians were even putting it on their fries. So I figured you were missing a thing or two yourself."

"A taste of home at Christmas," I sighed, cutting into the gravied beef with my dagger, while holding a piece of it with my fingers, in true medieval Viking style now.

Roana just laughed. "You're not even hesitating, or asking for forks anymore," she noted as I shared my dagger with her and she cut a piece of beef off to enjoy as well with it as I now held our plate for her, just smiling back, my dark goatee smeared with gravy.

"You want a fork, anyway?" my mate offered. "The FSK still use them."

"I'm not FSK," I replied.

"Merry Christmas, my love," Roana smiled, moving in for a gravy-ladened kiss with me.

"Gletilegt jól, felagi minn," I replied.

We held that kiss for a good long time as the festivities and feasting continued around us. I even forgot about the beef and gravy, for a while.

That first Yule, in the snow at the dragon caves, eating roast beef and some vegetables, with gravy covering it all, off a rough-cast pewter plate with nothing but a dagger, along with a simple mug of hot cider generously laced with mead—not to mention dessert later back at home in the bedding with Roana, under mistletoe of course . . . it was the best Christmas I had ever known, but never dreamed I would have.


	38. Chapter 38

"Wake up, sleepyhead," I heard one morning a couple weeks past our big Yule celebration now.

"Why?" I wondered with a yawn. "I thought you said we didn't have to worry about schedules much in winter."

"Because, the storms are gone, and even the sun looks to be coming out as it's rising at midmorning now. So your leg cast comes off today, and Substance has plans for you," my mate responded as she knelt beside me, already fully dressed for the day.

"Why does she tell you first, instead of me?" I queried, now stretching amid the quilts and bedding against the front wall of our house, where living rooms and windows would normally be in Outsider houses.

"Because you sleep late," a deep, familiar voice replied from near the fireplace at the centre of the house, "and I prefer talking in Dragon."

"Besides, Tor has been up and about for hours," Roana added, still kneeling beside me, but fortunately now offering me a steaming mug of morning tea. "He's even taken his family for a walk in the snow, and it is kind of embarrassing when the chief of the village is consistently the last to wake up in his own household."

"I've usually been the last to get up," I replied while sitting up in the bedding now and taking a first sip of tea, "no matter where I've lived, growing up, even with Melanie. Some call it a curse. Me? I've considered it both a curse and a blessing at times. But I suppose if you want to provide me with an alarm clock, even a wind-up one," I now sighed, "I'll start waking up like an Outsider again."

"Well, I don't know if we need to go that far," my mate decided as she rose to her feet. I smiled, knowing by now that I had merely to invoke the dreaded 'O' word, or 'U' word in Old Norse, which seemed to instinctively cause most any Dragon Berker to swerve the other way on a given topic. "But you did seem to respond fairly quickly when the phones rang that one morning at the lifeboat station," Roana then countered, heading back towards the cooking area where Tana was quietly working.

"Part of my training," I quipped, "alongside target practice with my NASA-issued handgun. Sound sleep to 'Yes sir!' in twenty seconds or less. But I was expecting to have a heart attack from it all by age forty. Thought I'd escaped from all that here though, and would be able to enjoy the restful and stress-free sleep my body could evidently use. What can I say? I'm just naturally a late sleeper."

"So I suppose I should go into labour in the afternoon if possible then several months from now," my mate replied, helping Tana now in the cooking area, "or would you prefer evening?"

"I'd prefer the lazy, quiet winter days I was promised by this blonde girl when I found myself working at chores or one thing or another from sun-up to sundown basically every day of the week on this island when the snows weren't here," I sighed, trying to enjoy my tea. "You even had to get me to slow down when I first woke up in this cast, remember, with talk of leisurely reading and discussing the Journal for days. Now you all want me to speed up again apparently."

"Árvekni had to go get Roald, most times," Substance now admitted, "for morning meetings. Just stopped there on way, by time I became Guardian."

"Really?" I remarked, feeling somewhat vindicated.

"You not so bad, Lannce," my dragon affirmed, "is he?" Substance finished, now facing toward Roana across the house fire.

"No," Roana now smiled, "he's not. Want more tea, my love?" she then asked me.

"You sure there's time?" I teased with a raised eyebrow.

"There's time," she smiled, even coming back to me now with a small, steaming kettle of it. She proceeded to sit down next to me, refill my mug, lay the kettle aside, and then curl up against my bare chest as I extended an arm about her. Substance just turned her head, facing the fire again with a subtle smile, her lifeless eyes half closed.

I was still trying to get my head around this sudden shift in tone and pace as I glanced between my mate and my dragon, while also noticing Tana continuing to quietly chop food for the day's stew in the cooking area as her Zippleback was fetching frozen blocks of both meat and vegetables from our wooden pantry hatch to the outside, and thawing them for her with smooth coordination among its two green heads as well.

I looked at our dragons again. Substance, Rökkr and Spring were all lying on one side of the house fire, seeming to bask in its heat and glow like they would the sun.

_Levellers,_ I thought. Dragons were indeed the great levellers and peacekeepers in this society—even likely the reason it had endured now for almost a thousand years. Just a few well-chosen words from Substance had turned Roana from, "Hurry up, let's go," to slowing down and curling up against me.

I kissed Roana's forehead nestled against me as I rubbed the couple layers of tunics she was wearing over her back and sides.

"I'm sorry," she quietly apologised, now meeting my next kiss with her own lips.

"I know I'm a lazy screw-up," I smiled.

"No . . . No," she replied as she now sat up to not only kiss me, but lay me back down amid our bedding. "No," she repeated a third time as she then slipped back under the quilts with me, slipping off her tunics and laying her entire self against me. "No," she repeated one more time as she kissed and embraced me.

"I'll wake up whenever you want if it's like this," I quietly breathed in compromise.

"Deal," my mate breathed as well amid our kisses as I now drew the quilts over our heads. I could feel Substance smiling at us from almost halfway across the house. Her pet and his mate had been deftly pacified once more, and she was likely enjoying whatever happy and even passionate vibes we were sending out, right along with us.

I no longer questioned it all . . . I was too preoccupied.

— — — — —

Eventually we dressed before Roana, Rökkr, Spring, Substance and I trekked outdoors into the now bright sunshine and across the snowy commons along an already dragon-cleared path to the bunker and its clinic. That Substance asked to be tacked up in her saddle and strap of office, and convey me across to the bunker, did give me pause. But after my _very_ pleasant morning so far, I knew I owed her one. She probably had already factored that in as well.

Once inside the clinic, Roana helped me move onto the exam table and shed the pants with oversized legs that Tana had made for me to wear outdoors to accommodate my cast. Then Roana employed a small electric saw to carefully slice open the cast my right leg had worn for two and a half months, careful to cut below the heart and 'I Love You' she had written on my cast in red felt pen when she had first applied it all.

"We're saving this part," she said as she sawed the rest of the way around the heart and words in a long oval.

Once my leg was freed from the cast though, "Owww!" I grimaced, beginning to straighten and stretch it for the first time as I lay back, propped up on my elbows on the stainless steel-clad examination table.

"Hold still," my mate cautioned as she ran the fingers of both hands carefully along my shinbone. "Okay, it's healed," she concluded.

"You don't need an X-ray?" I wondered.

"I'm a Berk healer," she simply replied.

"Not just a vet?" I queried.

"Healer," she reiterated, looking into my eyes now. "Lance," she then sighed, "as you probably know, I've been making rounds most mornings as you've slept in . . ."

"Ran has become obstacle," Substance interjected, summarizing, "to harmony here. We will ask him to leave, to live in Barony."

"Don't I have something to say about it as chief?" I wondered.

"Recommendation then," Substance corrected. "He not bond with dragon. He disturbs and complains. He not belong here. Roana and FSK medic can care for human villagers."

"Ever since I came here, and ever since I became chief," I said looking down, still propped up on my elbows upon the exam table, "I have believed that we can make a place for anyone here. We did it for Alexi, despite my own reservations initially; and now we've done it for Miles as well. Throwing Ran off the island would feel like quitting on him, giving up. That's something I didn't think we did here, Substance."

"He bond with dragon then," my Night Fury replied, "or he leave."

"A master to control and correct this pet?" I let slip.

For the first time, Substance narrowed her vacant eyes towards me, but said nothing.

"I'm sorry," I apologised. "That was out of line."

"We're equals here," Roana noted, "but we are tied together. Ran has never been tied in, as the rest of us have."

"But you, or your past self when I first came here," I qualified, "told me that there were a number of villagers who weren't bonded with dragons here, including your parents—just like there were a good number of dragons who weren't bonded with villagers."

"But my parents had left for the Outside shortly after I started college," my mate countered. "Our norm here is that unless a human bonds with a dragon, we prefer they not remain on the island, especially now that we are better connected with the Barony. Interaction with the Outside was much rarer when I was growing up though, and my parents entertained dragons frequently in our house, making sure I had dragon friends . . . otherwise even my family would have been invited to leave. I think they stayed, or were permitted to stay, mainly for me—to offer me a future here. I can remember them resisting bonding with dragons themselves, but I don't know or remember why."

"But there are a good number of unbonded dragons, aren't there?" I posed. "Hundreds of them, from what I can see. Why can't we have unbonded humans in the village?"

"Fyrir því drekar, Lance," Roana replied. "That's why every human is here. We do not have room or resources for those that aren't. Dragons cannot live on the Outside, but humans easily can. While in Germany, the Baroness and I talked a lot. She told me there is a healthy list of recruits that are willing to come here, and bond with dragons. There isn't a doctor among them right now, but there could be in future, and she can make a priority of it if we want. Ran has been using us to hide from life however, even from himself. Having almost married him, I know him. His only valid reason for staying here—she died in the battle. Things weren't working out between them anyway, from what I could see last summer. They weren't living with the decisiveness of Berkers here, just dating without committing—much like his ancestor, Snotlout, was said to have done in the Journal during part of his life with my ancestor, Ruffnut."

"This seems a little different from what your old self told me when she was introducing me to this place," I noted. "You were all about freedom of choice in living arrangements back then."

"I wasn't in tribal leadership then, was I?" she countered. "Things look a little different when you're the one having to hold everything and everyone here together."

"You were a tribal emissary, knight, and the island vet when I met you," I replied. "But this seems personal with you, apparently in more ways than one."

"We have all to think about," Substance reminded me, "not just one. Disharmony cannot be tolerated here. He is not here fffyyrrr—for the dragons," she stammered, trying to say our core credo in its original Norse, "and he is not well-liked, or relied on, by human community either. He is hiding among us, as Roana say. Leading is hard, Lannce . . . but harmony, and dragons, must come first."

"We can't tolerate diversity, or embrace an outcast and his quirks, eh?" I wondered. "Even though he's known this island as his home his entire life, except for his outside schooling and training."

"He bond with dragon, embrace ways of a dragon," Substance reiterated, " . . . or he leave."

"I agree," Roana added.

"I think you should recuse yourself from this decision or vote," I quietly noted.

"Rökkr?" my mate then swiftly countered, turning towards him.

Near her, Rökkr began grunting in a complex series of vocalizations while he looked sternly at me as I still sat semi-reclining on the exam table. I waited for a translation, but none was coming.

"Little translation here," I hinted.

"He vote with Roana and me," Substance summarized.

"Anything more to it?" I wondered.

"If you understood Dragon, you would know," my Night Fury replied to me with uncharacteristic irritation.

"Even my founding ancestors didn't," I replied. "So I think I'm in fairly good company. Learning and speaking our Norse has been hard enough."

"I learn your language," Substance almost grunted with frustration. "Why you not try mine? It part of me, who I am," she added, seeming to be feeling hurt now.

"Substance . . ." I sighed, not knowing where to go with that as I now sat upright on the exam table. I drew up both my knees for the first time, wincing with pain at the stiffness my right leg still had, while rubbing my face with my hands. "I thought we were here to get my leg cast off," I added, "not have a full-blown tribal council of elders."

"We have let some problems 'slide' as you say, too long," my dragon countered. "It time they were dealt with."

Spring, ever the young, sensitive soul, just seem to cower at the controversy among us now, even backing away a bit, while I noticed Rökkr nudging and quietly murmuring to Roana before he looked at me once more.

"Lance," Roana now said with more conciliation, putting an arm around me from the side, "Rökkr was just adding that he had long thought Ran wasn't fitting in here, reminding even me that he had warned me against him, and thought that while we should help him to adjust to life on the Outside somehow, that he belonged out there."

"Rökkr put you up to this further explanation, just now, didn't he?" I queried.

"So what if he nudged and talked to me?" Roana quietly whispered with mild exasperation herself. "Can't you see Spring's nervous from all this?"

I bit my lip about dragon 'coaching' or even perhaps control. "That's a problem with the Dragon Berker mindset," I decided to say instead as Roana still had her arm around me. "I may not be a psychologist or sociologist, but from what I'm seeing here, our community can't seem to deal well with diversity of thought or independence among the humans. Independence among dragons seems to be fine, but humans don't seem to be permitted that particular luxury."

"Lance, what have I just said?" Roana sighed more loudly this time, shifting further back into irritation again as she withdrew her arm. I took a deep breath, sighing myself. "If a human cannot buy into interdependence with dragons," she continued, "even if they've lived in this village their whole lives so far . . . they don't belong here. It's that simple. It has to be."

"Roana, could I see you a minute?" I asked, glancing towards Substance, and even Rökkr. "Alone?"

"No," my mate replied. "Your dragon companion has the right to know anything you may want to express. It is law with us."

"Enmity has arisen between dragon and human at times in past here, since Journal," Substance noted, "and even at Old Berk, within Journal. Anything you say, you say in front of me . . . I know what it be, anyway," she said after a pause.

"You can read my mind, then?" I challenged directly to her.

"Yes," my dragon replied with equal directness. "It comes and goes, but when I focus, I sense your thoughts. It is link that opens at bonding, and develops with time. It is how Dragon and Rider fly as one, and fight as one. You not need to tell me to turn or fire in battle, just think it. I have been picking that up from you before battle. I know you have challenge accepting this truth though. So I reveal it to you slowly, at right times."

That gave me pause for a moment, as I had not before known how deep the bond between human and dragon companions, between Substance and myself, ran. For an instant, I felt mentally naked before my dragon now—that she could tap into most any thought she wanted, while I could not do the same with her.

"Your kind has always had this ability?" was the only thing I could think to ask now.

"Yes, Lannce," Substance replied. "You think Toothless could fight and kill Red Death dragon with Hiccup, if Toothless had to understand Norse within weeks of being snared by Hiccup? Opening a link, one mind to another, through trust, was how they won. Hiccup just never knew, in full. You now do.

"Please don't shut me out, through anger," Substance asked though. "You can, easily. I not read through that. No dragon can. But that why harmony so important, so vital, to us. It is circle we all part of, equally. That is what tribe is—circle. If Ran, others, not share in circle . . . they not part of us. Please, Lannce . . ." my dragon almost quietly seemed to beg now.

"It's not control?" I wondered. Spring was looking at me, almost sadly, already shaking his head in answer to my question.

"No," Substance replied as well, fully closing her eyes. "It is sharing harmony, equally. Maintaining circle. That all. We dragons revere circle tribe is among us, guard it with our lives. Guard you with our lives. Without humans, without you, we nothing . . . we dead."

"And from you, no secrets are hid," I sighed, reciting part of the Lord's Prayer I had known in the Anglican Church my whole life until now.

"I not God, or Christ," my dragon replied, seeming to appreciate the irony with me, "even less than you want to be fulfilment of our prophesy. But circle is calling of Dragon Berker way and life."

Substance now stepped forward a few paces, reaching her black snout blindly for a nudge with me. She stopped short of the table, probably sensing from me how close she was, but keeping her large head and its half-opened, unfocused eyes elevated and pointed in my direction as I sat up on the table.

I knew now that I had no choice but to willingly keep myself and my mind open to her, even open them further. Slowly, I moved myself off the table in front of Substance as Roana, Rökkr and Spring watched standing beside one another. The sudden weight on my now uncast right leg caused me to stumble, that leg buckling under me. But Substance was right there, catching and bracing me with her head. She could not have known to do that the way she did in her blindness without direct access to my mind, reacting virtually as fast as I was to it all. I now relaxed myself as I lay on the top of her large leathery, scaly head, embracing her, even feeling our link deepen, almost right through my heart.

"All here," I now felt her deep voice resonate through my body, as much as hearing it via my ears, "all humans who guard us, accept it."

"And you all let me be chief before I bought into all this?" I wondered aloud.

"I not part of that decision," Substance replied.

"And it was made without me as well," Roana echoed near us. "You and Substance saved us though. The job was basically yours automatically, especially with who you already were to us."

"But I want you to be great Dragon Chief," Substance continued. "To know dragons, and our ways, yourself. I also want to be truly your dragon."

"My becoming a knight didn't quite do that?" I wondered.

"That fighting," she said. "This more."

"Alright," I now quietly accepted, still embracing my dragon's head.

"I love you," my Night Fury said.

I opened my heart unreservedly to Substance at that point, even just thinking, _Here, take it._

Substance seemed to silently raise her head slightly higher in acceptance, almost lifting me bodily off the floor on top of her.

"How do you say that in Dragon?" I quietly asked, pressing my nose against her hide near one of her ear lobes.

"You want me to teach you?" my dragon murmured.

"Another trap?" I smiled, moving my face back just a bit.

"You want to learn sacred words like those," Substance gently said, "you learn on my terms. They not just words to us. They part of greater discipline, ways of a dragon."

Just then, Arna came in with a basket load of both Tor's military battle fatigues, as well as their own outside civilian clothing, breaking the spell for the moment as she headed for the washing machine in the corner of the clinic.

"That's for military use only," Roana said to her.

"But how am I supposed to vash the rest of our clothing?" Arna shot back.

"Hand washing with simple soaps, as we do," my mate replied.

"But those rough vashboards vill ruin our clothing," Arna countered, setting her clothesbasket down in front of the washing machine anyway. I noticed she was wearing a blue Outsider polyester ski bib and parka—things our washboards would just shred.

"You should be switching to village clothing by now," Roana answered. "I thought you had been told about all that," my mate added, turning towards me with a less than pleased look in her eyes. I just looked down, feeling like I was right back in the doghouse again.

"Can't talk to Outside relatives like at other posts," the brunette woman sighed. "Can't wash clothes in machine, even though machine here . . . have to live like ve in Røros Museum village—no, even more primitive than that!"

"I'm sorry, Arna," Roana tried to empathize. "But that's how all of us live. It's part of the deal in living here."

"Vhy?" the FSK wife now sniffed in front of us. "Vhy? I marry vonderful man, but I not marry all this."

Even though I was wearing a tunic which just covered up the Berker sheepskin leather equivalent of boxer shorts, I turned to face Arna, grimacing as I stood on my right leg again.

"Easy," Roana encouraged beside me as Substance now braced me on my right side. "You're still going to be lame yet for a few more days."

"Got it," I quietly acknowledged to my mate, while also realizing what I should be doing for 'the circle' now, as Substance had put it so well. "Arna," I then said, getting her attention amid her growing frustration at life in our village, "I was right with you when I first came here from the Outside—and that was under the old regime," I shrugged with a half smile, trying to relax the tense atmosphere. "But remember, to the Outside world, we don't exist here. We can't. It has been that way for much longer than you or I have been alive . . . almost a thousand years now. We both appreciate how it would be if the rest of the modern world discovered there were dragons living here—and that extends right down to washing machines, even calls to relatives. We don't have the energy, and can't process the wastewater with its artificial detergents if every one of us uses the former, and how long would it be before either you or I let something slip to someone either of us know on the Outside if we made calls there?"

"My husband vants to stay," she now wept. "He is in awe of dragons here. But I don't know. Ve're married, even have a daughter . . . but this is not how I imagined living."

She now left her basket of clothes behind in sad frustration, just turning and walking away before slamming the wooden door of the bunker shut behind her.

"She's on the verge of divorcing him, and leaving us," I quietly noted, knowing those signs all too well myself.

Rökkr now murmured again as he glanced between Roana and the closed door.

"You're right," my mate quietly replied to her dragon companion. "It is sunny. Excuse us, Lance."

Without further explanation, the two of them walked to the door as Roana pushed it open again. Substance braced me on my right side, as slightly smaller Spring tried to do the same on my left, before we three then moved towards the door to follow, with me limping on my newly freed right leg as I did. As we reached the door, stopping there, I could see and hear Roana calling after Arna as both my mate and Rökkr half ran towards her on a cleared wide path in the snow. Catching up with Arna, Roana put a hand on her shoulder to stop her as my mate began to talk with her. I couldn't hear what was being said, but I really didn't need to.

Very gradually, with her head lowered, Arna turned towards Roana. My mate drew our houseguest into an embrace. I could see Arna was crying now. They just remained that way, seemingly for moments. After watching them, Rökkr now moved in, nudging Arna as well, before tilting his head and gesturing off away from the village, either up the valley or towards the sky. I saw Arna pointing to herself as Roana talked beside her while Rökkr nodded.

To my surprise and delight, Roana was then helping Arna mount Rökkr's neck, even though he wasn't wearing his saddle.

"Rökkr and Roana are taking Arna for a flight," I said to Substance beside me in quiet amazement, conveying the scene for her.

"I know," my dragon quietly replied beside me as I looked at her in surprise.

"Rökkr's thoughts even clearer to me than yours," Substance added, "when I focus."

Once Arna, and Roana in front of her, were on his neck, Rökkr then launched himself upward with a great leap with his legs out of the wide trench in the snow, before rapidly extending his wings and powerfully thrusting the three of them further into the bright blue sky.

"They're flying . . ." I couldn't help saying in admiration.

"Lannce . . ." my dragon said after a long pause, her voice broken in sadness.

"What is it?" I asked, kneeling down next to her large, black head despite the pain of flexing my right leg.

"I wannt to be up there . . . again," she said, lifting her head skyward as if she could see Rökkr flying peacefully over the village with Roana and Arna.

I could have cautioned her—half of me wanted to—with a hundred reasons of why it wasn't a good idea for her yet.

"Well," I said however, pausing as I briefly looked down, "I have my cast off now . . ." I let Substance sense the rest of my thoughts of love and trust towards her as I touched the saddle she was wearing. My dragon just silently turned her head and nudged me, her eyes closed in quiet gratitude.

"You need pants and boots though," she then reminded me. No wonder my legs and feet were so cold as I knelt at that doorway.

"I'll get them," I said with chagrin, turning and seeing them on a chair beside the exam table.

"You need help," she countered as I turned and hobbled with Substance and Spring back across the clinic to that chair.

A moment later, I was fully dressed again, complete with the warm Berker flying jacket and gloves I had worn to the clinic. After some difficulty in stretching my right leg and making it work again, I was mounted on Substance's saddle as we once again stood poised at the bunker's doorway in the bright sunshine. A number of dragons, some with riders, were now seeming to take to the skies, almost in celebration of the rare fine weather.

"I trust you," I said, laying a gloved hand on her.

I lowered myself on the saddle, gripping its bars tightly as Substance's wings spread on either side of me.

"Now . . ." I simply added.

We were off. The bunker doorway and the snowy hillside around it fell away beneath us as my dragon powered us both up into the sky and sunshine. Substance and I were flying again. Even I couldn't help briefly closing my eyes in joyful awe.

"Guide me, Lannce," she replied, "with your mind . . ."

I opened my eyes once more, sitting up a bit in the saddle now._ Bank right . . ._ I thought to her, seeing if such a cue would work. Substance smoothly banked right. _Level off . . ._ I then thought, and we levelled, heading west towards the bottom of the valley and the ocean beyond. Substance wasn't barking to generate echoes this time. I had placed my trust in her to keep us airborne, and I now realized she was placing an equal trust in me to guide her.

_Bank left. Let's head up the valley . . ._ I suggested in thought now, not really wanting to venture out over the ocean this first time, in case we had problems. Substance compliantly banked us to the left as we gracefully turned just out over the ocean above the rocky sea stacks that stood guard in front of our valley against all beyond.

_Level off . . ._ I thought, aiming us up the island valley. _Accelerate, climb . . ._ I then encouraged, spotting Rökkr with Roana and Alna ahead and above us. Substance began digging her wings more rapidly into the air, powering us forward and upward. _Good, very good . . ._ I couldn't help praising appreciatively to her, before adding, _Slightly to the right._

"Track them with your eyes," my dragon then suggested. "I cannot see them well through you, but sensing where you see them, and how far away, might be faster than guiding me with words in your mind."

"Okay, show me what you can do," I replied, just keeping my eyes focused on Rökkr, Roana and Arna now.

"Now we Dragon and Rider," Substance said with satisfaction as she banked just a little to the right and continued accelerating us higher right towards them. Rökkr then turned over the upper valley ahead of us back towards the village, with Substance and I pursuing them from behind and below like an eagle pursues prey in the air, turning with them as we continued accelerating—all without me speaking or even thinking a word to her.

I found myself closing my eyes and touching my face against the back of my dragon's head in a prayer of deep thanks, overwhelmed at the link that even I was conscious of now, and the miracle it was allowing to happen. Substance and I were flying as one, fully and equally dependent on one another. The joy even I was feeling was beyond measure.

"Lannce . . ." she prodded me with her voice though. "I cannot fly us, unless you concentrate."

"Sorry," I smiled, opening my eyes again and focusing on what we were doing together in the air.

"We be great guardians together now," Substance said with joy yet quiet determination. "I feel alive again."

It was true. I felt something returning, even surging within Substance beneath me. Here in the air, she was no longer a wise but handicapped tribal elder. She was a dragon again . . . alive, powerful.

Substance and I surged forward together, passing just under Rökkr's left wing as we moved ahead of them now. Then, we just had to do it. My Night Fury and I peeled off into a bank and spiral dive to the left, daring them to give chase.

Rökkr and his riders pursued us in that spiral before we led them climbing upwards into the air again as Spring caught up with us. We then flew eastward up the mountainous valley that was covered end to end and side to side in deep snow.

_I'm sorry you had to wait for this, Substance . . ._ I thought as we turned again, now soaring beside the almost vertical mountain faces.

"No, Lannce," my dragon assured. "This was right time . . . for us."

"Time to bring it back to the village, you two!" we heard beside us as Rökkr and his riders caught up.

"Yes, Doctor," Substance sighed with a little irritation beneath me, but knowing she was right.

I looked and concentrated on an appropriate landing spot in the snowy village commons in front of our house. But then, once more, we were bad. It couldn't be helped. I didn't know whether it was Substance, me, or both of us, but I didn't care. We soared on, right over and past that landing spot as Substance accelerated and climbed one more time out over the sea as we now emerged from between the north and south ranges of tree and snow covered mountains that marked the western end of our island.

I barely had to think it before my dragon shot a powerful blast into the air in front of us as we then smoothly banked away to the left, back towards the village.

_We are warriors . . ._ I silently expressed with both pride and gratitude.

"Yess . . ." Substance agreed.

Now we could land.

Roana was already waiting on the snow in front of our house with her arms folded, hopefully not too irritated with us, as she stood next to Rökkr, Arna and Spring while they watched us smoothly descend from the air.

"Pick landing spot, not Roana!" Substance hastily cautioned as we rapidly approached them. I just quickly looked at a patch of snow a couple metres in front of Roana and Rökkr, as Substance flapped her wings, slowing our descent as she then landed us with amazing smoothness, her front left paw touching down almost right where I was looking.

I then just lowered myself in the saddle, tightly embracing my dragon's head and neck. Substance retracted her wings as I sensed the others approaching us from the front.

"This," I said, raising myself back up in the saddle while still looking down at Substance's head, "is why we do without washing machines, phone calls and letters here. Gladly so."

"Yes . . ." Substance agreed beneath me. My dragon and I were one again, so very one.

I looked up to see Arna clearly moved at the sight of Substance and I together, as well as her own first experience now with the true magic that flying with a dragon was. But for some reason, she still didn't seem quite convinced or sold on it all.

Roana now came up beside me as I remained in Substance's saddle, also glancing at Arna as she did. "Lance," my mate then almost whispered to me, "what about that unresolved issue we still have?"

I nodded as I glanced down, remembering another discussion Roana, Substance, Rökkr and I had had a number of days ago during a storm about another in our village, two others actually, who were not in the best way, and who had missed out on our recent Yule celebration, although beef had been brought and shared with them.

"Arna," I said, almost seeming to get an idea being fed from my dragon now, "you want to really have your own stake here?"

— — — — —

We walked together, with me still riding on Substance. "My legs stronger than yours," my dragon had perceptively reminded me, as we crossed the snowy commons, taking Arna to a house on the seaward side of the village, near the ceremonial area.

"We want you to see Salmei," I said to Arna as we walked, "a young orphan girl I had seen on my first day in the village who was being raised by her family's Nightmare, named Treystu, or Trust. Her dragon was seriously injured in the battle, attempting to fly Salmei to safety during the initial assault as Treystu was shot down from the air. Salmei was uninjured though, and she then proceeded to protect and feed her dragon during the brief occupation, reportedly incurring the ire of the Soviet commandos more than once, so I'm told. But Salmei's being a little girl was the best protection both her, and her dragon, could have had. She was a tough and determined young survivor, even warrior," I smiled, looking aside with admiration.

"Now though, the dragon is struggling amid her injuries after battling them for months," I continued. "A number of us in the village have been helping them both. Roana has even been fielding a number of offers of adoption from human villagers. The little girl has remained resolute though. She is determined not to lose this last member of her family, and has refused all offers of adoption. But caring for her dragon into the winter now, even with help, is taking a toll on her."

We arrived at Salmei's door as Roana stepped forward and knocked while Substance grunted, announcing who we were in Dragon under me as I dismounted from her saddle at last. The door was opened by the little girl. A large basket of fish was in the middle of their house floor. She had obviously been slowly pulling it from their pantry towards her dragon. The young girl looked exhausted. Her clothes were dirty and she obviously hadn't had a bath in a few days.

Even I was surprised. "Shouldn't we be doing better than this?" I quietly asked Roana beside me.

"Others are supposed to be checking on them daily at midday, while it is light," Roana said. "But during storms like we've had the last few days, it doesn't always get done, especially as different villagers take turns."

The young girl then simply returned to her task of hauling the large basket of fish across the floor to feed her disabled Nightmare. Even the sight of it tore at my heart.

"Arna," I said, turning to her. I could see she was moved though as Roana stepped forward to help haul the basket the rest of the way to the Nightmare as it lay centrally on the house floor near the small fire the two of them were able to maintain by themselves.

"All they have is each other," I said in English, "and they refuse to give up on one another. But they need more than they have."

"I can see that . . ." Arna slowly responded beside me, almost seeming in shock from the sight.

We resumed watching them in silence a moment more as both Roana and little Salmei now fed Salmei's dragon with fish—the Nightmare, gratefully swallowing every fish she was given, but clearly with some difficulty. I briefly recalled the first day I had seen them both out in the village, healthy and innocent of what they, what we all, would experience a few months later. It saddened me even further.

"You vant me to adopt her," Arna noted beside me, breaking my train of thought.

"No," I quietly replied. "As I told you, Salmei will not be adopted. We want you, your family, to help her family survive and endure. Her dragon has grown up serving and guarding Salmei's family alone since hatching. It doesn't seem to really want another dragon around, and neither does Salmei, which makes pairing them up with another family on the island here somewhat difficult. Roana and I were going to try matching them up with a family from out in the Barony—but perhaps Tor, your daughter and yourself would like to become part of their family."

Arna just looked at me.

"This will make things like washing machines pretty irrelevant after a while," I added.

"But Tor and I do not speak Old Norse," she replied. "And caring for that large dragon?"

"All you need are baskets, fish, and occasionally a shovel," I quietly said. "Salmei will show you the rest. She lost her father to fire, and her mother to cancer. Her dragon likely cannot last forever as it is. Salmei is a very responsible young girl from what I've seen. Helping you care for your infant daughter will give her something new to focus on, one that will not compete with her dragon for Salmei's strong loyalties. She should make a transition sometime though, bond with a new family before her dragon passes if it doesn't survive. You want a purpose here? A reason to stay and adapt?" I posed.

"She's lost everything," Arna quietly said as we looked at the little girl and Roana feeding the disabled Nightmare.

"She could lose everything," I noted, "unless someone makes a difference for her, now."

Arna seemed to take a deep breath, before she stepped forward and knelt down beside Salmei and Roana. "Hjálpa?" she offered in one of the few words of our Norse she had picked up so far.

"Já," the girl simply replied, as Roana got up, allowing Arna to take her place and continue slowly feeding fish to the ailing Nightmare.

Roana came back to me no longer able to conceal her sadness. "It may not be long," she quietly said. "Treystu has been holding out as much as she can."

I could see Arna glancing back as I now consoled Roana with an embrace. I just looked back at Arna, asking with my eyes.

Glancing at the young girl beside her as Salmei fed her dragon another fish, Arna then looked back at me, closing her eyes and finally nodding.

"My family vill move here this afternoon," she said to us, "after I give this house, and even Salmei a good cleaning. Vil du hjelpe meg omsorg for datteren min?" Arna then invited the girl beside her in Bokmål, asking Salmei to help care for Arna's daughter.

Salmei looked at Roana in confusion.

"Vilt þú hjálpa umönnun hennar fyrir dóttur ungbarna hennar, eins og hún hjálpar þér þykir vænt um drekinn þinn?" my mate translated into our Norse, rephrasing it into a more equal exchange of Salmei helping to care for Arna's daughter as Arna helped care for Salmei's dragon.

"Já . . ." the young girl of few words said once more as she now looked at Arna.

"This might just be what both of them need," Roana quietly whispered to me. "Salmei hasn't been able to keep up with Treystu's needs very well, and that has been making her dragon worse."

"So there's hope?" I wondered.

"I choose for there to be," Roana answered as we both looked on at them.

— — — — —

Soon Roana and I found ourselves bidding Tor, Arna and their daughter farewell—even though they were just moving across the commons from us.

Tana had even offered to go with them to lend a grandmotherly hand, and allow her Zippleback companion to continue soothing their toddler off to sleep. But once we all were over at Salmei's house again, the girl seemed more than happy to introduce the toddler to her own dragon, and as soon as she had invited Arna through mostly gestures to bed the toddler down next to her own Nightmare for even an afternoon nap, the infant was falling fast asleep as usual. Well fed this time, Treystu even seemed to find renewed purpose in helping to care for this new young human, as Salmei was as well.

I smiled though, watching as Tana nonetheless insisted on doing a first load of clothes washing by hand for Arna, seeming to take extra care with the more delicate fabrics. Sure enough, that worked, as Arna could not just stand by as an aging village woman washed the family's Outsider clothing for her.

"Let's just have dinner over here," I suggested amid all the cleaning and washing that was going on in Salmei and Treystu's house. "A housewarming."

As we just left the half-made stew in our own house for another day, I continued marveling at the young girl and her Nightmare surrounded by activity, life, and a new sense of family once more in their house, with all of us enjoying fish and vegetables, both roasted and raw. Even Treystu eventually grunted to Roana that it had been too long since she had enjoyed stimulating mature conversation, thanking my mate for all she and Salmei were being given this day with a simple nudge as the evening wound down.

"Því mitur þat tók okkur svo langan," Roana said to the dragon in apology for taking so long in arranging this kind of needed and lasting help for them.

Eventually, Roana and I were walking home across the commons amid a quiet, clear and starry night . . . well, both of us were riding our dragons side by side actually, as Substance and Rökkr occupied themselves widening the snowy trench in front of us with sustained blue flames. "Works off dinner," Substance had said to me as she and her mate had voluntarily begun their task.

As Spring followed us while Tana rode Tvö Höfut's shoulder between its necks as well, Roana just reached across from Rökkr to take my hand, giving me a clear indication that now our guest family was gone, I had one more task ahead of me tonight as well . . . albeit it a pleasurable one, especially now that my leg cast was off. Rökkr was even walking with his right wing extended over and around Substance. It was 'love night' in our house for sure—even with Tana and her Zippleback still present, and presumably off in their own corner where they slept.

"You got a problem?" I heard Roana wonder, as if she was trying to read my mind as well.

"No," I assured as I was just watching my dragon rapidly melt and harden a section of snow wall that was as high as my chest as she and Rökkr continued slowly but steadily moving forward underneath us against the snow. "Just a busy day," I added.

"We at house yet?" Substance wondered, pausing for another breath as her flame shut off for a moment. I just looked up across the shelf of snow in front of us. The front steps and porch of our house were only about three or four metres away now. "Thanks," my dragon said as I patted her neck appreciatively. "All I need to know."

"Can you see through me?" I wondered to her. "Really see?"

"Yes and no," my dragon said, almost with sadness as she paused again before resuming her fiery snow clearing. "I sense information from your thoughts like how far, as well as up, down, left, right, faster than you can think words—basically like you catch balls or aim gun. You don't think 'up, down' as you move arm, your arm just moves. Arm doesn't see either. So I become arm. I can also sense outlines, presences, vague images . . . but not clear picture. Might work on that focus though, and see what might be possible."

"I still wish it had been me, rather than you, Substance," I said, appreciatively laying both my gloved hands on her neck at the base of her ear lobes, scratching where I knew she enjoyed it the most.

"No . . . you don't," she gently countered. "You would be dead if it had been." Substance and Rökkr then simply resumed their steady blasting of snow in front of us.

I ungloved my hands, laying them silently down on my dragon's neck as I let her feel the full extent of the unfathomable gratitude I was now feeling towards her for what she had just said, as the two dragons melted the final few yards of snow on either side of the trench in front of us before we reached home.

— — — — —

I found myself in an earthquake . . . a serious one as I felt shaken like I never had been before. Strangely, even though the wooden floor of my house looked solid, it was spongy and very soft to my touch. Suddenly, the wooden wall of our house next to me issued not one but twin ear-splitting roars.

"AAAAHHH!" I exclaimed, sitting bolt upright now in what turned out to be our family bedding as I felt Spring nose me over onto my side away from what was going on next to us.

"Sorry, Fatir," my son excused in seeming apology for startling me.

"Sor-Sorry, too," I now heard Substance strain to say as she gasped for breath, albeit sounding _very_ contented and satisfied.

I turned my head with my eyes open now, seeing Rökkr poised over Substance, and easily guessing what they had been up to, especially as he gnawed at her neck a bit more.

"A different way to be woken up, eh?" I heard Roana now smiling as she knelt down next to me offering me a cup of morning tea. "It was my suggestion though, so don't blame them. More natural than an outsider alarm clock for you anyway."

"What happened to waking me up yourself?" I wondered. "The way we had talked about?"

"I can be a little mischievous, even conniving with the dragons, can't I? Especially when we don't have Outsider house guests anymore who wouldn't understand," she responded, smiling.

"Outside Berker, you mean," I clarified.

"Outside is the operative word there," she defended, while still offering me the cup of tea once more.

I gave her a sceptical look while I sat up in the bedding now, taking the tea as Roana, and even Spring, moved my pillows up behind me, before my dragon son invited me to lean back with a gesture of his head.

"Thanks," I said gratefully to him. "Do you have to be the good peacemaker all the time though?"

My young dragon son looked down for a moment. "Lost much," he finally said. "War, conflict, hurting . . . not like."

I extended a hand to rub his head as Spring just quietly laid himself down next to me again, resting that growing black head of his on my lap.

"Let him be who he is," Roana said as she settled herself down on my other side. "It's okay, Spring," she soothed him, placing a hand on his head as well. "I'll just be bad sometimes for both of us, alright?"

"Good better," he sighed. His was a pure soul indeed—despite, or maybe because of, all he had experienced, and lost, in his young life.

Substance seemed to turn her head towards him or us though a little, but she said nothing as she chose to rest it instead on our bedding next to us once more.

"But . . . you don't mind seeing your dragon parents doing that?" I then wondered to him while gesturing my head towards Substance and Rökkr, even though I knew better by now.

"Why?" Spring innocently replied, now raising his head and looking at me. "See them clean each other, eat, what is difference?"

"Your father is still half Outsider, Spring," Roana noted as she just took her own indoor tunic off and curled her bared self up against me in our bedding with her own cup of tea. "They don't do such things in front of others out there. They keep themselves . . . falinn, hidden . . . from each other. Much more than we do," she explained, searching for the right words.

"Strange . . ." Spring noted, looking down as he tried to understand such a perspective.

"Your English is getting very good, Son," I now praised him solely in that language.

"Thank you, Father," he replied likewise, looking at me with gratitude.

"Can you read my mind, too?" I wondered.

"What you not want me to see?" he answered, almost seeming to smile.

"Never mind," I smiled as well. He was right, what was there really left for me to hide, sitting up in our bedding as I was with Roana curled beside me?

"You need rest of my plan," Substance noted, turning her large head towards me as Rökkr moved down beside her, breathing a deep sigh as he proceeded to relax.

"Plan?" I asked, almost choking on my tea, suddenly feeling I was in for something here.

"You want to deal with Ran?" she then asked. "Turn him? Keep him here?"

"Do we have to deal with that right now?" I sighed. "Breakfast and a bath first might be nice, you know."

"Storm coming," she said, raising her head, almost seeming to sense it. "We should get to dragon caves with Ran before it arrives."

"Why would we want to go to the dragon caves if another snow storm is coming?" I wondered, now trying to more rapidly drink my tea before it felt like I might lose the opportunity to enjoy it at all.

"Because," Roana now chimed in, stirring herself again beside me, "it is something that neither you, nor Ran, have ever done."

— — — — —

Before I knew it, I was being bathed, dressed, offered a quick breakfast, and then almost shoved out into the snow as the skies darkened and the winds began picking up.

"See you later," was all Roana would say as she kissed me goodbye at our front door before Substance hustled me outside, almost at the point of her snout as the door was shut behind us.

"Find Ran," Substance then said to me, lifting her head towards the sky and sniffing the air. "Not much time."

"What is all this about?" I wondered with a little irritation.

"Connection, circle," my dragon almost cryptically replied.

"Oh . . ." I said, now beginning to realize what was going on. "And it has to be done now?" I added.

"Now is time," Substance simply maintained.

"Did you do this with Amund?" I couldn't help asking as we trekked across the commons, with me leading her towards the house Ran occupied alone.

"He was boy when he did this," she simply replied.

We then were interrupted by the young vet tech who was still in our village, as Frelsari came up behind him.

"This is it!" the young man almost angrily exclaimed to me. "I qvit!"

"YOU!" Substance almost roared at him. "Come with us!"

The young man seemed to almost freeze in surprise. "Who runs zis place?" the young vet tech exclaimed, looking between Substance and I.

"We both do," I said. "But," I added, "the Guardian has spoken, and right now, she is."

Substance had her mind made up about something, and I felt I owed her my support at the moment, even though I didn't know what it was. Looking at Frelsari, I could tell he had done about all he could with this clearly difficult Outsider as well.

"Hvíld núna, vinur," I gently encouraged Frelsari as I gestured with my head back towards the house he shared with Helga and their family.

The aging Night Fury grunted at me, shaking his head though.

"He says he will fly Anders with us," Substance relayed.

"Anders now, too?" I quietly wondered to her as the winds picked up further around us.

"You, as Outsider and Berker, are needed," she quietly said to just me. "We both either get them to join circle, or they leave."

"Understood," I replied.

We all proceeded to trudge the few remaining steps to Ran's door, with me knocking on it firmly. Ran opened his door, dressed only in an undertunic, clearly surprised to see me.

"þú . . . þarft at klæta sig og koma met okkur," I said somewhat hesitantly but firmly as I directed him to get dressed and come with us.

Seeing both Substance, as well as a now nervous Anders with Frelsari behind him, Ran just quietly nodded, murmuring, "Já," before he turned to change as he shut the door again.

Fresh snow was beginning to blow against us as Ran soon re-emerged from his house, now dressed for winter. With a gloved hand, I simply gestured towards Substance's saddle as he compliantly mounted it, before I mounted in front of him.

Substance then took off into the air, with Frelsari carrying Anders not far behind us.

"Hvat—" Ran began to ask me as he loosely held onto me from behind.

"Ekki núna!" I replied somewhat sharply to him, cutting him off as I tried to concentrate amid the rapidly diminishing visibility on where we were flying so Substance could receive adequate guidance from me.

"I got this," she said, then roaring anyway, her ears rapidly pivoting to trace the echoes.

I felt her bank us gently to the left as I now lost sight of both the ground and mountains around us. A couple of cave dragons, a Nightmare and a Nadder, then dropped down on either side of us, with fish hanging from each of their mouths, seeming to silently offer to escort us to their caves. Substance briefly roared again, seeming to confirm her course, as all of us began gently descending.

Substance barked one more time, the echoes almost immediately bouncing back to us. Finally I saw some snowy rocks and trees in front of us, as I looked at the ground, giving Substance a spot to focus landing on. She braked in the air, once again touching us down gently, this time right at the twin entrances to the caves, as wisps of steam came out of each of them.

"You're getting better at this," I praised Substance as I dismounted from her, my right leg feeling somewhat better today as it touched the ground.

"Thanks," my dragon said as our group then entered the caves behind the Nightmare and Nadder who had been escorting us. "Now," Substance said, turning towards we three humans once we were all comfortably inside, surrounded as we were by other dragons of every breed resting almost cheek by jowl against one another upon their nests. I knew Miles, Ilsa and Garrison were in here somewhere, but I couldn't see them amid the crowd of dragon heads and bodies around us. "Lannce, Rann, Annders, take off coats, please," she said in English, knowing that Ran and Anders could understand her along with me.

"Why?" even I had to ask though.

This time Substance would not answer, except to repeat, "Take off coats, please."

Reluctantly, I led the way, taking off my flying jacket and gloves. The other two humans behind me slowly followed.

"You may keep them as bedding," Substance continued, "but do not wear them again for now, or we will burn them off your backs."

"Substance?" I asked her a bit forcefully.

"It is time you three understood my kind better," she then said, "through living, eating, and speaking as we do. Became part of circle with us."

"I did not sign up for zis!" Anders now objected as Frelsari angrily growled behind him.

"Are you Berker, or Outsider?" Substance then challenged, her vacant eyes narrowing.

"W-Why?" Anders stammered in his Norwegian-accented English.

"Because if you Outsider, you leave, on my neck," Substance maintained. "We send your belongings on next helicopter. But if you Berker, you stay, learn, become part of us!"

"The FSK are Outsiders, like me," Anders tried to quietly counter.

"They Berker!" Substance shot back. "They work with us. They not cause problems! You treat simple crocodiles and antelope at zoo better than us!"

"H-How'd you know?" Anders nervously stammered with surprise.

"Even though I blind," she said, "I see into heart, your heart." I was a little surprised that she so readily revealed her ability to mind read to the young vet tech, but I could understand the reasons why she was.

"You want to connect with animals?" she now pressed. "With beings other than your kind? Here your chance . . . not as master to captive, but as equals. And Rann," Substance continued, addressing him in English that she knew he understood, "it time your hiding end."

I glanced at Ran on my other side, but he said nothing in response.

"You want to go to Outside, or stay?" she posed to him.

Ran did not answer though, just stiffening as he looked at her, almost like he was about to be sentenced at trial.

"You know harmony is all in Berk," Substance resumed. "You know you not part of that. Unless you become part of harmony, you not belong here. So choose . . . or leave island as well."

"Lance . . . ?" Ran now turned and asked me, speaking my name for practically the first time, almost seeming to plead with me to intervene and stop his threatened exile.

"Both of you," I said, addressing Anders as well, "Substance is right. Just as we don't have the resources to have modern conveniences—there isn't room for those who will not become part of this tribe, and live as we do . . . and that includes," I added, even to my own surprise, "the harmony that has kept all of us here alive, and living together, hidden, for almost a thousand years. Outsiders are among us now . . . I'm among us," I almost shrugged. "But the rest of us are adapting to our ways here. You two are the only ones who aren't. Substance and others have helped me realize that this life, here, is a call to not only live as this island is able to sustain us, but to live open to our tribe as well. It's why Substance has brought me here, along with you," I acknowledged, facing my dragon once again. "We are here to become truly part of the tribe . . . or leave. It's that simple."

To emphasize my point, and lead by example, I then proceeded to shed the rest of my clothes altogether. The dragons didn't wear anything, so why should we while we were guests in their home?

Substance silently nodded at me as I lay the rest of my clothes on my jacket. With the geothermal steam wafting through the caves, I wasn't cold as I stood up again, mostly on my good leg. I then just closed my eyes, meditating, praying, my hands folded in front of me as I stood in between the other two men, facing Substance.

Eventually, after a lingering silence, I heard the rustling of clothes on at least one side of me.

"Alright," I then heard Substance accept with a sigh in front of us, able to judge our intentions even without seeing us, "it time you learn I serious."


	39. Chapter 39

_Author's Note_

_I will admit when I began this story that I saw it as basically the end of this trilogy and saga . . . and don't worry, there seem to be a few more chapters to go yet here._

_But in both a review of the previous chapter, and a couple subsequent messages back and forth, one reader convinced me to find another story that belongs in this saga. So you can thank 'thepurpledeath' for assuring that there will be another story after this one. While I find myself already a couple chapters into this new DRAGONS story, just allow me a while, as I am in the process of adapting a commercially viable e-novel from one of my original screenplays as well._

_But for now, I hope you enjoy another chapter in 'Legacy of Myth' . . ._

— _Norwesterner_

* * *

><p>"Annders," Substance now said, facing the three of us, "put on jacket again. Lannce, dress, too. We take Annders to station."<p>

I opened my eyes, glancing either side of me, noting that Ran was now unclothed like I was, while our young vet tech was still fully clothed.

"Sure you don't want to give this a try?" I wondered to Anders.

"Where I come from," he replied, "animals don't run the zoo."

"That is such a limited perspective," I sighed, almost chastising him. "Have you come to appreciate nothing while you've been here? Dragon and human living together, in peace. Helping each other survive."

"I slog by day," he replied, "working to try and keep these dragons healthy under ze most primitive conditions zat authorities would have closed ze zoo I came from. Zen, instead of nightclubbing and relaxing watching sport, I have zis dragon and his woman nagging me night and morning to do more around zeir house in a Norse I can barely understand! And you won't even let me have my stuff from storage! So no! Why should I stay? Zis place is nuts! I want to go back to Oslo!"

"You think we will just let you go back to the city, having experienced all you have here?" I asked.

"What do you mean?" he wondered.

"At the very least, you'll be kept for weeks of evaluation by Outside Guardians, and probably moved to a carefully supervised interim life at a rural animal preserve or sanctuary, or even vet clinic within the Barony," I noted, looking at him. "We can't just release you back to the life you had with all you know now, can we?"

That gave him pause.

"While you've been here too long now for the conventional memory drugs we use—and I apologise for that, as we just let the three day limit I experienced slip while we all were too busy—I suppose we can use the Soviet memory drugs that we discovered, and have used here," I continued. "They take a year of memories away however. My mate knows all too well about that. But I will not let some fun-loving city-dweller give us away. None of us can afford that."

"So you would kill me then, to protect these dragons?" he wondered.

"I have killed when the dragons' protection required it," I replied. "I'm not proud of it, but I have. I don't have to here though, so I won't. I am simply warning you that leaving this island will not be the pleasant, easy return to Oslo that you've been thinking it would be. As chief and a guardian of this tribe, I cannot let it be that."

"So I'm trapped," he said.

"You have a choice," I replied, "with challenging paths, no matter which way you go."

"What about Ran?" Anders asked as we looked at our unclothed village physician.

"By his actions here, he's telling us he wants to stay," I noted as his eyes met mine. "I would like you to stay as well, as the veterinary workload here is greater than it used to be, and it will be so for as long as our maimed dragons live."

"What's in it for me?" the young man asked.

"You know," I sighed, looking down and shaking my head, "I'm about ready to go get those Soviet memory drugs myself—_after_ apologising to Frelsari behind you. I'm amazed he's still friends with me.

"You _give_, you _get_ here!" I said sharply to the young man. "So much more than you get on the Outside! I had lab assistants like you back in Houston . . . oblivious to both the miracles and the menaces we were discovering in the Petri dishes and microbes we were working with. All they could think about was getting off work at five and heading for a bar. But their lives, and mine . . . they were so empty there, compared to what I now know here. Is that what you really want? Looking at creatures you're working with by day as just _things_ to be kept alive in cages? Then empty partying at night followed by even emptier hangovers in the morning . . . alone? Or worse, finding yourself married yet disconnected, like I once was out there?

"Life! Meaning!" I continued. "That's what you get here, on this island, in this tribe!"

"I don't know," the young man now said.

"Try!" I challenged. "Why did you get into veterinary practice in the first place?" I then asked.

The man then looked down, subdued. "Because I was unable to save my best friend growing up," he said, "my dog, Reiki, after he was hit by a car outside my home. His body . . . it shook with ze pain he was in. But he never took his eyes off me. He was trusting me to make it all better. I couldn't. He died as my mother was driving us to ze vet.

"Funny," he then sniffed. "I had forgotten that."

"That's what we do here," I said, "remember, feel, care. Now, strip out and join us . . . at least try out the humongous sauna the dragons have going here."

"I have been in hotter saunas," he noted. "Zis one is fairly cool."

"The heat is right that way," I replied, pointing to the far recesses of the caves amid the dim and fading light around us. "You'll need a dragon to guide you though, especially among all the sharp teeth and spines they have in the darkness around here. Come on," I both challenged and invited, "give it a try."

The young man finally smiled as he began stripping off his shirt, while Substance grunted for some dragon volunteers from among the cave population. I felt myself being nudged from behind though, as I turned to see it was Frelsari. He now backed away a little, giving me a deep bow with his eyes closed before he looked at me again.

I gave him a slow, respectful nod in reply as I briefly laid my right hand on his head. Not a word needed to be said. Frelsari then turned around for the cave entrance. Home and Helga were calling him as always, and he was grateful to finally be relieved of his duties with Anders.

— — — — —

Soon, having stripped Substance of her saddle and strap of office, I was riding her as she walked. A Gronkle was bearing our young vet tech behind us, while a Nadder was leading us, grunting occasional guidance to Substance while also carrying Ran into the warmer, steamier recesses of the caves. For a while, I couldn't see a thing as we passed among dozens, even hundreds, of other dragons as I felt their leathery hides, as well as the occasional teeth and spines brush gently against my bare legs. I had never been this deep into the dragon caves before.

Finally though, there was a reddish glow ahead of us in the passage. We emerged into a large chamber, where dragons of all kinds were lounging or dozing on every ledge and horizontal surface. It was hot down here, but fortunately the air still seemed to circulate and reach us, as the odor of sulfur wasn't too heavy.

"Not need clothes here," Substance grunted as she lay down while I slipped myself off of her to sit down against her, while Anders, Ran and their dragons did the same near us on a ledge overlooking the gently simmering lake of molten lava far below.

"No," Anders agreed next to us.

Then, to his surprise, and somewhat to mine as well, three Zipplebacks then brought each of us two buckets—one containing water, and the other fish. The three dragons then laid the buckets down next to us, one of each pair of heads then carefully picked up a fish while holding its mouth open as the other head emitted a spark, lighting a flame in the other's mouth. In less than a minute, nicely roasted fish were deposited back into the buckets next to Ran, Anders and myself.

"Bet no zoo animals ever offered you hospitality like this," I smiled to Anders, as I picked up my roast fish from atop the rest in my bucket.

"No, they didn't," he admitted, already chewing his first mouthful. Other dragons now dropped more fish for each of our dragons as well. Even I was amazed at the coordinated and apparently planned dragon hospitality. This was a side of our tribe I was very glad to be getting to know better now.

"Share water, Lannce?" Substance requested after swallowing her first few fish.

"Of course, Substance," I replied, taking my water bucket and then rising to tip about half of it into her mouth as she opened it.

"Prefer mead tea now," Substance noted afterwards as I sat back down beside her once more.

"Me, too," I smiled as I ate more of my fish. "Substance," I then quietly said to her, "I know what we're here to get the others to do, but you brought me here for something, too, didn't you?"

"I been thinking," she said. "Was originally going to make you learn Dragon, speaking just that to you. But as adult, it be futile with you—human speech locked in now. Cannot grunt like dragon as children learn . . . and you good defender of our ways. Doing very well here," she then said quietly, almost in a whisper—as best a dragon with a deep voice could whisper anyway, "I forgot Outside consequences. So I go easy on you. Our goal just bring others into circle. You teacher here, too. Already setting good examples."

"You don't want to challenge me?" I wondered. "Stretch and grow me?"

"You already say to Annders what I want to see in you," she quietly replied once more. "You think it do much good, though? I your equal, not master."

"Really?" I couldn't help wondering, finding my residual scepticism, even cynicism, surfacing once more.

"Really," she assured. "Dragons protect, guide, not rule. We not crave power, wealth. No need for those. What we do with them here? Look around," she invited. "Every dragon have food, shelter, warmth, company. What else we need? What would power get us? Happiness? No. If we rule humans, we have to watch humans. Humans rebel. Then war, death. No point. Or humans leave us on island. Then no one protect us, help us hide from Outsiders. Death again. So we just help guide you, guide us all, together, to better, more peaceful life. Dragon life. No more master/pet ideas, okay? Equals—that what we are . . . what I want to be, to you."

"Substance . . ." I sighed, moving onto my knees to embrace her large, black head with gratitude. "I'm sorry."

"I take this understanding of equals," she said, "over you learning our language. Although if you learned our language, you would have understanding, too."

"You all really want this Outsider as chief?" I couldn't help asking as I just sat on my knees now, looking at Substance.

"You good chief," she maintained. "You what we need now, dealing, even dependent on Outside. You, I, with Roana and Rökkr . . . we govern, serve, well."

"We do, eh?" I half wondered, half accepted as I sat back against the side of my dragon once more.

"Stop worrying about you," Substance replied. "Focus on others, and serving. Life more pleasant that way. You not worry, 'Am I good enough?' when we fought. You just fought, even killed. Be chief, companion, serve same way now."

"That's some way of putting it," I sighed, "but you're right."

"Relax," Substance invited. "Enjoy heat."

She then rested her head on the lava sand of our ledge as I turned to relax against her as well, casually tossing the bones and tail of my roasted fish into the cauldera as I sat down, and tipping what was left in the water bucket into my mouth, and onto the rest of me amid the volcanic heat.

I noticed a couple Nadders laying near us, murmuring to one another. What they were saying though was completely unintelligible to me. "You're right about the language thing, too," I then mused to Substance as I looked down into the steaming caldera once more. "With Norse, I could begin to latch onto and recognize words, expressions. Having studied runic writing on the Outside helped. But with Dragon, in all the months I've been here, I have yet to recognize a single word—other than Frelsari's two-toned grunt for 'Helga'."

"I," Substance said, followed a short, sharp grunt. "Love," she then said, followed by almost a purr. "You," she concluded, followed by a gentle, low warble. "We say it," she then warbled, grunted and purred, "You I love, though."

I did my best to follow her, but I weakly gurgled instead of warbled, my grunt wound up being a burp, and my purr was more of a growl.

Substance laughed deeply, subtly shaking her head and closing her lifeless eyes in mirth as she did. I noticed Anders' and Ran's dragons were deeply chuckling, too. "You say something like, 'Sun sick I make.' Amusing, but good effort."

"You think there's hope?" I wondered.

"Don't try too hard," my dragon advised.

— — — — —

Eventually, we three men had had all the heat and sweating we could want. So it was time to plunge ourselves into the other half of ritual Nordic sauna, literally, as we dashed outside the caves for both a bracing roll in the stinging snow and storm, and to relieve ourselves outdoors as the dragons did, while our dragons accompanied us. We all then returned to the relative warmth of the caves and the overnight accommodations other dragons had prepared for us, a fellow Night Fury guiding Substance and I to our nest in the dark, where I found my clothing had been laid out for me to lie on, with even a large sheepskin to wrap myself in. The dragons knew us humans well, and had thought of even this.

As I bedded myself down with Substance wrapping herself around me, tail and all, and I heard Ran bedding himself down with the Nadder that was keeping him company as well.

But . . . "I'm sleeping in a dragon's nest?" I nonetheless heard Anders note in mild complaint.

"Your Gronkle helped make that for you," I replied. "It's their gift to you. Shouldn't you accept it with some gratitude for their thought and effort?"

"I never wanted to go to za Third World," he sighed.

That made me sit up in my bedding amid the darkness as I was surrounded by Substance. "We value connection, gestures, feelings here, rather than things one can buy at arms' length with money," I said. "Out there, you run out of money, most will not value you anymore. Here, your worth is judged mostly by the fact you're here, as well as by who you are and how much you help. We are surrounded by the Barony's wisely-managed riches, yet we need none of that here, except the food, supplies, and now protection, the Barony buys for us."

"So why can't I have a bed here?" Anders maintained.

"You are here to better understand your patients, Healer," I said, using the tribal name for what he did, "by living as they do, so you can come to see them as equals, and not just animals. This is how they live. They are giving you the best they have to offer, even bringing sheepskins for us from the village. Consider it cultural immersion."

"I've heard of you, Doctor Husa," the vet tech then said, slightly chilling me in using my now former, even discarded, Outsider title and surname. I was indeed Ýsa now. "You were a world-leading exo-biologist. One of your papers was required reading in my microbiology class. So why did you give all zat up . . . for sleeping on sticks?"

"Because I was alone . . . trapped," I replied as I lay back down. "Money, salary, stuff? They were never issues for me. I even developed several lucrative patents on the side. But freedom, and love? Those were things I didn't have—things I have found in abundance here." Substance wrapped her tail more tightly around my covered legs and feet upon hearing that. "But that name at least is dead now. I even have its Norwegian-issued death certificate hanging on a wall in my house. And I don't sleep on sticks either—at least at home—but in the softest quilt bedding, surrounded by the most wonderful human and dragon family I could ask for."

"Zat's how I saw Frelsari and Helga sleep with their family," Anders now said near me. "Close as could be. Even zeir little dragons were tucked under quilts right with za human children."

"You could come to have that," I said, "starting with the dragon you choose, and who chooses to bond with you as companion. You would never be alone or lonely again here."

"It's zat simple?" he wondered.

"And that miraculous," I said.

"What do I do?" he then asked.

"Your Gronkle there seems to like you," I noted.

"But . . ." he hesitated.

"Careful," I advised, "they can read minds, to some extent."

"So I've noticed," he replied, "with both Frelsari, and now your Substance."

There was a moment's silence in the darkness now.

"I couldn't have a Nightmare, or Night Fury, like you?" he finally asked.

"Gronkles have the biggest hearts," I said. "It's why yours hasn't just walked away yet . . . as I would have by now if I were in its place. Besides, Night Furies can be real task masters," I said, winking in the darkness to Substance, knowing she could feel my jestful intent.

"Don't I know zat," he sighed. "So a Gronkle, eh?"

"They'll grow on you," I encouraged. "There's a lot underneath the surface with them."

"Given the amount of surface," I heard him reply, "I guess that goes without saying. So . . ." he then said, "what do I do?"

"A simple nose-to-nose nudge is all it takes to bond as companions," I replied. "If you want to become Dragon and Rider, just a saddle—along with some training. Although saddles aren't that necessary with Gronkles."

"A Gronkle," Anders now yawned, "who can read my mind . . ."

"And your heart," I added, "as good or better than the best dog can." I then heard just silence, maybe a little snoring coming from him.

"Ran, hvernig ert þú at gera?" I then asked, casually asking how our other 'student' was doing. But I heard nothing back from him either now. This was likely much more normal to him. He just perhaps had never personally participated before.

"Lance . . . ?" I eventually heard to my surprise from him though.

"Já?" I answered, wanting to make Ran feel more comfortable.

"Ve speak English," he then said, as I heard him coming over to the nest Substance and I were sharing. I sat up, pivoting around so we could both relax against Substance's side as she continued to seemingly doze. "I could use za practice, and your Norse isn't zat great."

"Thanks," I said, feeling a little deflated, despite having worked diligently at both my pronunciation and grammar. "But what's up?"

"Just zat you are vhere part of me vanted to be in life," he said. "Vith Roana, leaping right ahead of za rest of us from Outsider to chief. But Ýsas reportedly alvays vere zat vay."

I now felt Substance pick up her head in the darkness, perhaps out of vigilance for me, perhaps to let me know she was there to support me—as I now felt this conversation getting a little edgy.

"I can't help your envy," I quietly replied, "or being born into the family line I was. So apart from that, is there anything I can do for you?"

"I stayed, in za village," he said, "both my most of my life, and right through za occupation, gun to my head as I treated burns on those Soviets, along vith our own vounded. You just fly avay, and zen return, guns blazing, leaving me again to treat za aftermath. If I didn't need you to stay here . . . I'd sock you, right now."

"I can understand that," I patiently said, while bracing to be possibly hit with a fist nonetheless.

"Zese past months, since za battle," he continued, "I have stood at za cliffs at night, at za ceremonial area, vishing I had Alltaf's courage . . ."

"No one saw you?" I asked, wondering if our tribe, even my household, had fallen down on the job here.

"Dragons did," he replied. "Several of them. A few humans, too. I just turned avay and vent home."

"You didn't open yourself to them?" I continued.

"No," he simply replied.

"Living takes even more courage than Alltaf had," I said. "He is very personal with me, because the traumatic loss of his companion made me possible. But Alltaf never allowed Spirit to find a new purpose for him. Spirit used his death to help and inspire us, but Spirit also could have used his life, in ways neither he nor any of us could have foreseen. That to me is a tragedy that is as great as his death.

"You restore and give life with your treatments every day, Ran," I continued. "But you don't see or appreciate the good you do, as maybe you're too busy looking over those cliffs, or watching me with the family and status you wanted."

"I don't know vhat I vant in life anymore," he said.

"I once had that problem," I replied. "It's what wound up leading me here, actually."

"Really?" he remarked.

"Really," I confirmed. "Ran, except for your education, you've been here in the same place all your life so far. I got into a rut myself that wound up being a dead end for me. So, maybe a change of scenery, even a vacation or sabbatical, might help. Perhaps explore the Outside, even go beyond Norway. Work in a medical mission overseas, or just sightsee, even do nothing for a while. If you want help in any way from the Barony—be it career or life counseling or coaching, even money for travel or living expenses—I will see that you get it. We owe you that, especially as no one here on the island earns any money to save or spend."

"You vould do that?" he asked.

"Yeah, I would," I assured. "You could always return later, bringing more perspective back with you that we could benefit from here, just as I have."

"Me," he mused, " . . . a vacation, a change, even for a vhile. You're not za kind of chief I thought you vere, or zat ve've had here before."

"I'm me," I said with a shrug.

"Now I can sleep," he said getting up with his sheepskin to return to his own nest for the night.

"Goodnight," I smiled, laying back down myself as I sensed Substance now relaxing and resting her head around me as well.

This chief job was challenging, yet satisfying.

— — — — —

I was awakened the following morning by something steaming and smelly being dropped right in front of my face as I lay on my side amid my primitive bedding against Substance. I opened my eyes to see it was a fish, already roasted. I looked up to see a Night Fury, its neck stretched over me, looking at me with clear eyes. It wasn't Substance. She was still lying beside me, her still head resting between her large paws.

All I could do with this other dragon was to thank it with a nod, and perhaps a thought of gratitude. The Night Fury nodded to me in return, and then backed away, departing.

"Thank you," I sighed watching this dragon go, wishing I could have better expressed my appreciation of its hospitality.

"You did fine," Substance murmured beside me, sensing my regrets. "Gestures count as much as grunts. Your grateful nod was all a dragon would have done. So you speak Dragon more than you know."

"Thanks," I yawned, stretching, as I then sat up against Substance. "I'm not much for fish as breakfast though. I prefer tea and oatmeal, or at least yesterday's sweet bread."

"Give to me," my companion suggested, "or dragon in need if you see one near."

"Our host or hosts won't be offended?" I wondered.

"If no one ate it, they would," Substance replied. "But as long as gift is used and appreciated, all are satisfied."

"So, what's on today's agenda, teacher?" I asked, beginning to miss the breakfast I had just been thinking about.

"We done," Substance answered. "Rökkr about to come with Roana and Spring. I send thought to him, asking Roana to bring tea and bread for you . . . Rökkr doing it."

"I can see why Berkers haven't felt a need for phones here," I mused, grateful for the prospect of a delivered human breakfast now.

"Or radios, among Riders," Substance noted.

"You mean . . ." I began to say.

"Unnecessary," my dragon affirmed, "except to you. Even hand signals just for humans. Dragons already know what going on. If Riders listen, we can relay and communicate among all by thought and quiet grunt . . . undetected by Outsider radios."

"So even during the Soviet occupation," I realized, "you knew Roana was alright."

"And I in touch with captured and free dragons," she replied, "assessing situation."

"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked. "Heck, why did you let the Norwegians risk placing Coast Ranger scouts on the island to make contact with our resistance?"

"Dragons hard enough to accept," Substance answered. "Spiritually aware dragons harder. Mind-reading dragons harder yet. You weren't ready. Outsiders might have considered us security threat, or new tool to be used."

"I can appreciate that," I sighed. "But you didn't keep it all to yourself, did you?"

"What general was originally thinking, low attack from south and west, was suicide," she continued. "I had to speak, plan battle myself."

"But you didn't want to be in charge?" I queried.

"I was in charge," she said. "I lead force, with you. Give orders to dragons, even you. I endure first gunfire, grab backpack."

"You should have been addressed as the mission commander though, instead of me," I noted.

"Another lifetime, further in future, perhaps," Substance replied. "Maybe in space. That way we demonstrate to aliens Earthers safe, trustworthy. But not now. You humans still having trouble integrating races, let alone species. Dragon commander or general? I not think so."

"Dragons and humans together on spaceships," I mused. "Captain Substance. The uniforms and space suits would be very interesting."

"Funny," my dragon replied. "Ideas of control panels would need complete rethink from your science fiction thoughts. Ships be run by thought or word, at least by us. And we would still need humans to build and maintain ships."

"That is good science fiction," I replied. "But do you hear each other in your minds all the time?" I then wondered.

"No," she replied. "It selective, when desired or needed, like accessing memory or radio transmission. It also discipline. Not all of us good at it, or can do it."

"I feel really inadequate now," I sighed.

"Stop that," my dragon instructed. "You not fly, yet together, we fly. I not see, yet with you, we see. You cannot ask Roana with thought to bring breakfast from village, but I can with Rökkr. Who does what not important. That things get done for all is."

"Today's lesson," I sighed, looking at Substance as I sat up in my bedding against her.

"Yes," she simply replied. "Give me fish."

I just picked up the now cool roasted fish beside me, passing it into her now opened mouth as she turned her large head partway.

"And Hiccup and even Eric didn't know this," I mused.

"Awareness and trust grow over time," Substance answered. "We know what they want after their anger, hostility towards us drop. It takes us time, observing humans, beginning to talk with Eric and later generations, before we realize they not aware as we are. We discuss among selves, reveal slowly. Still revealing. That you have broader mind, Lannce, can accept other life, other intelligences that are not human, helps."

"But if dragons are so intelligent, so capable," I wondered, "why didn't you develop tools, writing, civilization—exhibit conventional signs of intelligence?"

"Has to be on your terms, does it?" my dragon countered. "Intelligence not things. Intelligence is peace, harmony, as much as anything. Besides, what we dragons have to write or make things with? You have opposable thumbs, not us. But that handicap for you. It blind you to other forms of intelligence, even maybe limit your kind's own intelligence, causing you to grab, possess, rather than to simply appreciate, understand."

"Why do you put up with us?" I sighed, almost shaking my head.

"We _need_ you!" Substance quietly barked, seemingly in frustration. "My kind realized that when we battled at Dragon Island . . . and lost."

Substance lowered her head for a moment, remaining silent.

"We knew then humans would dominate," she continued. "Our best hope for life was humans who understood us—Hiccup, Eric, this tribe. They risk everything for us, hide and protect both us and themselves, set up buffer against rest of humanity through Barony. They kept freedom, we kept life. That self interest, that shared interest, still bind us all in this tribe. Humans no longer have to be here. But they remain . . . for us.

"'For the dragons,'" she continued. "You know how grateful, how humbled, moved, we are every time that spoken? We cannot begin to tell you. I cannot. We protect, guide . . . love . . . all of you, for that alone. I not perfect, Lannce. You not perfect. But together, we more than either of us without the other. Dragons ask, and offer, nothing more. Just that."

I glanced to one side, seeing young Anders and the Gronkle he was leaning against. They were sharing a small pile of fish—mostly herring it looked like. The Gronkle was depositing a number of freshly-roasted herring onto Anders' lap, fortunately onto his sheepskin. The two then just ate together quietly, glancing at one another. They couldn't speak to one another as Substance and I could, yet it seemed like they didn't need to. They were simply enjoying each other's company. By Anders' smile and the relaxed look in the Gronkle's eyes, I could tell their bonding had occurred. They were lifelong friends, guides, companions now . . . as only dragons and humans could know with each other.

I could see why dragons placed such importance on bonding, on commitment with humans. It was nothing less than the source of their survival, of life itself to them.

"Heard you could use some breakfast," I heard a familiar voice say on my other side as she got close.

"My dragon is looking after me," I quietly replied, as Roana took off her fleece-lined Berker jacket and sat down beside me, dressed in a couple layers of tunics and winter leggings, while I was still undressed under my sheepskin.

"Mind if we share?" my mate invited.

"Something for Substance, too?" I suggested, looking inside the woven basket she was opening before us now.

"Rökkr has that handled," she assured as her dragon deposited a load of fresh fish in front of Substance. "He went on a quick fish run before we came up here."

"I did, too," Spring now replied next to me, his own mouth still full of fish.

"Well enjoy and share some with others as you like," I invited, "but Roana has me taken care of here."

"I brought for other," he said, now turning away and quickly disappearing among the many other dragons in the cave.

"He used to live here, remember?" Roana noted as she passed me a mug of tea from a thermos, along with some hoped-for sweet bread.

"Didn't think I'd see one of those again," I noted, looking at the thermos.

"Got it from Thor and Arna across the commons," Roana noted as she sipped from her own plastic mug. "Thor said to take it. He'll make sure more are brought in for anyone who wants them. It's kind of nice having modern military on-island now."

"Substance has been telling me what 'Fyrir því drekar' means to them," I quietly noted in summary as we ate now.

"No wonder you're so quiet this morning," my mate knowingly replied, glancing at me.

"He learning," Substance assured beside me.

"Yep," I simply sighed in agreement, finding that both my mind and my soul had been stretched yet again.

— — — — —

After dressing, I helped our three tribal healers, Roana, Ran, and Anders in making morning rounds among the cave dragons. Things seemed to have stabilized months after the battle now. Dying had stopped, and families or at least communal groups had formed around, and even among, the maimed dragons. It made for some odd but moving combinations. The one-headed Zippleback I had met soon after the battle was now firmly bonded with a disabled Nadder who had managed to fly home after the battle, its legs lost to grenade blasts and one wing heavily damaged. Now with that wing amputated as well, the Nadder couldn't go anywhere. But that one-headed Zippleback had become its devoted companion as an able-bodied Nightmare took care of them both, providing a steady supply of fish, along with seaweed to balance their diet.

"The Zippleback is asking that a wheeled nest be built for his Nadder companion," Roana conveyed as she finished giving the Zippleback nutrient and calcium supplement injections. "He says his friend hasn't been out in daylight since the Nadder crashed at the cave entrance moons ago, and was helped into the nest he still occupies. The Zippleback does not want his companion to miss the beauty and warmth of summer." Roana then chuckled as the Nadder chimed in, too. "And the Nadder says he would like to regain the dignity of being able to relieve himself outside once in a while as well."

"I'll have carpenters get right on it," I assured, smiling myself. "Probably using rubber car tyres to provide a decent ride over this ground. I just have to work out how to make these 'wheelnests' steerable by other dragons. Plus, maybe some of us should make a smoother, wide enough path in and out of here as well," I added, assessing the situation.

"You'll have all the handicapped dragons wanting wheelnests with that," Roana pleasantly cautioned.

"What they want, they get now . . . and deserve," I said, looking at some more maimed dragons around us.

As Roana and the rest continued with their work among the dragons, I finally found Miles, Ilsa, and Garrison in what looked like a fairly deluxe nest on the other side of the caves. It had a small cooking area with a cauldron on a frame, but curiously without any firewood or ashes—along with several leather harnesses and wooden rigs, all arrayed on pegs along the cave wall behind the three of them. A couple framed pictures and certificates were tacked up there as well. Garrison was wearing his blue sash and medals, while Miles and Ilsa were relaxing against him in simple tunics. The absence of Miles' right arm and both legs, and Ilsa's right leg, no longer seemed so unusual or discomforting.

"Looks like you're making yourself at home here," I said in greeting to Miles, seeing his once buzz-cut hair was now growing out, and a full Viking beard was developing on his face.

"We are," he confirmed, putting his one remaining left arm around Ilsa. "The three of us have decided this is our home now. We never want for visitors and helpers. I am kept so busy interacting with Garrison and other dragons that I forget I'm missing three limbs at times. Ilsa translates entire conversations with our dragon neighbours and friends, and Garrison now easily carries me outside in a sling to relieve myself anytime I want. We three go out for rides and flights, too. I have a good life now, sir . . . after I once thought I'd never have that anymore. These caves, these dragons, are the community I want now. I don't want to live within the isolating walls of a house anymore. I want my family, and all our dragon friends around us, all the time."

"You've gone 'dragon' on us," I smiled.

"Yeah, I have," he admitted, glancing to his right at Garrison, and then the other way at his mate.

"Have we lost you as Lífvartarforingi, Captain of our Guard then?" I wondered.

"Let me finish healing and adjusting the remainder of this winter, sir," he decided. "When the green of spring comes . . . I will let you know. But whether it's that or something else, I promise I will find some way to contribute."

"I've missed your 'can do' attitude and reports in our village," I warmly noted.

"I've been missing a fair bit more than that at times," he replied, seeming to become subdued. "But," he said changing the subject and brightening up, "Garrison, Ilsa and I have been looking forward to a sauna session here, before the dragons want to gather later to hear another battle story from me. They've even told human friends down in the village, so we will be having quite a story circle, with mead tea, food, everything. You and anyone else are welcome to join us, sir, in a couple hours or so if you like. Dragons don't care much about schedules here. They all seem to know when to show up anyway. But we need to get ready for that, don't we, Ilsa?"

"Já, ve do," his redheaded mate agreed with a smile as she began to get up from beside him now.

"Miles," I said, kneeling down and clasping his one remaining left hand with both of mine, "it is so good to see you in this life you're enjoying now."

"I owe you for it, sir," he said as his hand squeezed mine. "I won't forget what you, your mate Roana, Garrison, Ilsa and this tribe are doing for me . . . and I will contribute back."

"Go enjoy your sauna," I invited, rising to my feet again.

Miles just gave a glance up towards Ilsa as she then grunted to Garrison. The Nightmare merely turned his head, selecting one of several leather slings pegged to the cave wall with his mouth and teeth, before setting it in front of Miles as Miles just rolled himself into it, pulling himself upright again by clasping the top straps with his one strong arm and hand. Garrison then hoisted Miles onto his neck as Ilsa stood on her one leg, hefting herself onto Garrison's neck behind Miles, as Garrison gave her a little boost with his chin, careful to tilt his head away to avoid spiking her with the long teeth of his lower jaw.

"You all really have this down now," I had to admire.

"Missing one leg makes mounting dragons easier," Ilsa smiled.

"And figuring out how much I could still do was something that kept the three of us busy for a while," Miles smiled as well. "Other dragons even watched and challenged me, roaring me on. It's why we love living here now. But if you'll excuse us, sir, we have a sauna bath to get to."

"Go for it," I warmly said, shaking my head with a big smile as I watched the three of them depart for the volcanic sauna chamber deep in the caves.

Roana then passed by me again, en route to check on more dragons.

"You want to stick around for the O'Connells' story circle in a while here?" I wondered.

"The dragons tell me those are good, and it'll be in your language . . . so why not?" she replied with a shrug. "It'll give me more time to talk with dragon patients here, and work with Anders further on his dragonside manner. But Ran's really going, huh?"

"He is," I replied, "after I told him a little about my sabbatical last night, and what it wound up doing for me . . . that and offering him any Baronial help he wanted."

"I thought your goal was to keep him," she said.

"It was," I reflected. "But it all just sort of happened last night, changed. I still don't really want him to go, but I want him to have the opportunity I did . . . to discover what's right in life."

Roana smiled before she kissed my cheek. "Back to work," she then said, leaving to check on more dragons.

— — — — —

It turned out that the O'Connells' story circles were as much about fish and feasting as they were about Miles' stories. They seemed to be the main meal and event of the day in the caves when they happened. I was amazed to see virtually the entire cave dragon population orient themselves around the O'Connells' home and nest on one side. Fish were distributed among dragons, and buckets of mead tea and water were passed around as well, with a number of human villagers and dragons making it all happen. Miles then began another war story, illuminated by torches in front of him. Ilsa was translating the story into Norse beside him, with Garrison translating Ilsa's Norse to Dragon beside them both, while other dragons relayed the story further back among the rest.

"How come I haven't been hearing about these story circles?" I wondered, as Rökkr, Roana, myself, Spring, and Substance contented ourselves sharing a nest several 'rows' back with a family of Nightmares who had invited us to sit with them.

"My fault, I suppose," Roana quietly answered, chewing on a piece of chicken from another picnic basket Tana and Tvö Höffut had brought from home, joining in with us as well. "The caves here are largely work to me, I like relaxing at home, we don't exactly have a tribal 'events' board, and I've just vegged and forgotten to mention these to you. Shall I go on apologizing? I've got more."

"Overworked? Underappreciated?" I gently asked, putting an arm around her again.

"Maybe more along the lines of cranky and pregnant," she sighed, now relaxing against me.

"Only about three months," I noted.

"Great. Six more months of nausea and a growing belly," she breathed, shifting further and seeming to want to take a nap against me.

"You want a break?" I wondered, holding her and gently rocking her amid that dragon nest.

"It's why I'm training Anders," she replied. "A real day of rest, knowing he's doing things right here would be nice. Thanks for whipping him into shape though, attitude-wise. I _really_ appreciate that, and so do the dragons."

"It was as much the Gronkle who adopted him as me," I qualified.

"But remind me to ask Ilsa there to be available to translate between the dragons and Anders so he can begin working apart from me, at least in the caves," Roana asked, "as no matter how nice a guy he becomes, he still won't be able to understand them anytime soon."

"Will do," I agreed.

I now heard no further response however. Roana was napping against me.

I just shifted with her, trying to get comfortable myself, but Spring was still a little small to be leaning back against. Reading my desires of course, Rökkr swung the thick base of his tail around Roana and I, across the backs of both Spring and Substance next to me, and up against the Nightmare family next to us.

Amazingly, that worked. I leaned back against both Spring and Rökkr now, apparently ready for a nap myself after our midday meal as I continued to listen to Miles' story being conveyed in three different languages. I didn't feel so bad casting an eye around and seeing many dragons also contentedly dozing as the story of an intrepid SEAL Team raid and mission Miles had participated in was being told. It was the kind of story about duty, gallantry and heroic deeds that dragons, and even Vikings, liked.

— — — — —

With Roana and I rested, and both of us having asked Ilsa at the end of the story circle to begin assisting Anders in working with the cave dragons, there was nothing more to really be gained or accomplished up in the caves for the time being. So those of us who had come from the village returned there on our dragons later that afternoon, taking advantage of the day-long break in the snowy weather. As we flew, I saw that Ran was riding a Gronkle this time, besides Anders and his own Gronkle, and that some small Gronkle children were following both of them.

"When do you want me to call in a helicopter?" I wondered to Ran as our group landed back in the village commons.

"I vill go za traditional vay, by dragon," he replied, "today, vhile za veather iz goot."

"No need to pack?" I wondered.

"No need for Berker clothing outside," he replied, "and Anders and his family vill be taking over my house for now."

"Family?" I wondered.

"Já," he replied, glancing at Anders and the Gronkles now around him. "Anders' female Gronkle companion has a male mate, and five dragon kids. Zey vill live vith him now."

"And they don't mind coming to the village?" I queried.

"Zey told me to tell Anders zey consider it an honour, and duty now," Ran said. "Help him become part of za tribe."

I could only smile and nod.

So, as the sun waned, I soon found myself presiding as chief over my first departure ceremony out on the village commons . . . for a man I had been expecting to stay. After swearing Ran to Gerhard's ancient oath to keep us safe through his silence among Outsiders, upon pain of death—I was amazed that part was still in there as I read it aloud in Norse—I had surprisingly mixed feelings watching him as he knelt before Rökkr, who had volunteered for the dragon half of the ceremony.

"Our kind needs to look the departing human in the eyes, too," Substance had told me beforehand. "A two-way pledge to keep a sacred promise."

Now, this quiet, thin, redheaded man with a beard was kneeling in front of Rökkr as the two silently and deeply looked at, even into one another. I could see a tear falling from the corner of one of Ran's eyes as their gaze persisted. Finally, the two closed their eyes, nudging their noses together before they parted and Ran rose back to his feet.

"Are you sure you want to go?" I quietly asked him.

"Until last night, I vas terrified of being kicked off zis island," he admitted. "But now, I go to find out vhat I vant in life. Just like you."

"Come home to us," I invited, "when you're ready."

"Vhen I am ready," he agreed as we first shook hands, and then embraced, like true fellow villagers.

He then simply turned and left, wearing old Outsider clothing he hadn't worn in years . . . a tanned shirt, brown slacks, brown leather street shoes, and a grey tweed jacket that he had been carefully preserving at home. They looked quite out of date, but they made him look professorial nonetheless. All he took with him was a single leather satchel, containing a couple pictures, a hairbrush and a few other personal articles, and his copy of the Journal. His heart was still Berker.

Rökkr stood ready to fly him out to the lifeboat station, as was tradition. Our heritage was re-enacted in another way as well, as Rökkr chose to convey Ran to the outside alone, without escort, just as Alltaf had borne my great grandfather. That brought tears to my eyes as the two of them took to the air and flew east, over our island mountains. Even though I instinctively knew he would, I found myself praying for Rökkr's safe return.

"Rökkr has been wanting to do this for a long time," Roana quietly shared, causing me to reopen my eyes as we both then watched them go. "Alltaf is his great-great uncle."

I prayed all the harder now, for both Rökkr and Alltaf, in thanks and blessing as much as in concern, as my right arm gripped around Roana beside me.

— — — — —

As night fell and our family waited for him outside, Rökkr thankfully returned. But when he landed in front of us on the commons, he was strangely subdued. Even I could feel there was something different about him.

"Tell us," Roana gently invited as she knelt down next to Rökkr, laying a hand on his head as he looked toward the ground.

Rökkr began grunting, telling us that his flight, both there with Ran, and back alone, were meaningful. He sensed Ran's uncertainty as they flew, but they parted quietly at the station. The Outside Guardians were there, even waiting for Ran with a car, our FSK having radioed ahead. Rökkr admitted he had consented to pose for pictures though, as a couple of the Outside Guardians had brought their teenaged children on duty with them, the children having made the choice to accept the invitation to become truly Berker. The teens told Rökkr in English they might even apply for consideration to school in disciplines we needed and become Dragon Berkers.

"'I just wanted to encourage them towards our ways,'" Rökkr explained through Roana's translations.

"How'd they know you understood English?" I wondered.

"'Station humans tell them who I am,'" Roana conveyed from Rökkr. "'I've met these station folk many times with Roana in the past, even spent time with them waiting for her return by car or helicopter.'"

I could tell Rökkr enjoyed briefly being a celebrity in his own right among those Outside Berkers however, as I made a mental note to talk with the Baroness about perhaps doing this sort of thing more often with them.

As he returned to us though, Rökkr said that he had prayed and meditated while following the same path through the air that Alltaf did, both physically and metaphorically, soaring towards the same cliff.

"'I chose to dive towards it,'" Roana translated as Rökkr continued telling us his experience. Other villagers were now stopping to listen as well. "'I tried to feel what he did, even reaching across time for him. I could feel his spirit among my paws as we both sped, faster and faster, towards that cliff. I grabbed onto him, clinging to him with all four paws, even my heart, mind and spirit. I banked away at the last second, sucking the shrubs, even the rocks and dirt off that cliff face as I zoomed across it. I leveled off, alongside the contours of that mountain above the sea, breathing again, opening my eyes amid a true peace now. My body and paws relaxed, and I felt his spirit soar away.

"'He thanked me,'" Roana sniffed, conveying the depth of Rökkr's emotion along with his grunts, "' . . . for coming to save him, from himself. His body died, in that moment moons ago, but his spirit was saved, and freed from its pain. It should have been done long before,'" Roana continued as Rökkr looked at us, "'but it has been done now. Alltaf did not have to wait.'"

It was a mysticism I will not attempt to explain. All I can say is that it felt true. An alignment had occurred. Something had happened.

"Rökkr . . ." I said, dropping to my knees before him. But I found myself unable to say a thing more for a moment. Our whole family knelt in silent prayer and meditation together, right there on the commons as the sun set to the west.

"Rökkr . . ." I felt moved to finally continue, looking at him again in front of me as we both opened our eyes, " . . . you are Great Guardian."

As soon as my lips had said it, I glanced at Substance, fearing I had said something I really should not have, and that likely wasn't my place to.

"You are Great Guardian," Substance agreed however beside me. "Successor to Árvekni, and me." My dragon companion then raised her head to the skies, emitting a loud roar, before barking a pronouncement in Dragon, presumably what she had just said in English. Villagers around us now cheered and roared, as Rökkr bowed his head in acceptance.

Substance soon had the two of us bring Rökkr his own leather strap of office from the archives—something that after a while Árvekni had chosen not to wear, with Roana quietly explaining to me that it was, "More a village thing." Cave dragons evidently didn't appreciate or desire adornment anymore than other extraneous physical items.

"I do wear my strap mostly for humans," Substance agreed, "and now for those we lost in battle."

"What about Garrison?" I queried as we brought the Great Guardian's strap to Rökkr. "He wears his sash and medals."

"Those he wears as memorial for Chief Garrison," my dragon replied, "and as sign of how grateful he is for Miles returning."

"But is it right though?" I then quietly asked her. "Having the Guardian of Memories, the Great Guardian, and the Chief, all in one family?"

"Already chosen that way at battle," my dragon replied as we walked back across the commons. "It been done before, even in Hiccup's time. I merely shed Great Guardian role now. Relieved to do so, since I pray better than see. It right for Rökkr to be our vigilant eyes."

"Will it affect he and Roana?" I wondered, with the two of them fortunately still a little ways across the commons.

"No," Substance assured however. "They be Great Guardian together. Already have been. Rökkr deserves equal status as my mate anyway."

"What about mine?" I asked.

"Roana village FSK commander, as well as Vet—perfect compliments for Great Guardian," Substance assured. "She been tribal leader during our injury anyway. There now four of us in leadership, together."

I could not disagree with my dragon.

Finally, we arrived back in front of Rökkr and Roana as they stood together.

"Anything I should say here?" I quietly wondered to Roana as I held Rökkr's strap of office.

"You and I putting it around his neck is all that needs to be said," my own mate assured, extending her hand as I passed one end of it to her.

Then, holding his head high, Roana and I put the thick, decorated leather strap around Rökkr's neck just in front of his saddle. We fastened its buckle, moving that buckle to the bottom out of sight, just like Substance wore her own battle-scarred Guardian of Memories strap. Villagers then cheered and roared once more as Roana and I stood up on either side of Rökkr, having completed our task.

With Substance now at my side, along with Spring—even though nothing had really changed, ours now truly felt like the tribe's royal family as we stood together, acknowledging the village's applause. Having moved himself to the outside of Roana once more, Rökkr and I exchanged a glance. There was a new bond, even kinship, between us now.

Heroism sometimes takes just a second, even a perception. That it does, or that it may even be spiritual in nature, doesn't make it any less real. Alltaf had been saved, freed at that cliff face now. And my great grandfather's guilt and debt had been assuaged. I could feel it. I could feel it all.

Rökkr richly deserved the honour he now bore. He would always have the gratitude of myself and all Ýsa, both dragon and human.

— — — — —

"Lance," Roana said as our family settled down back at home after this very eventful day, "I'd like us to do our bit to call springtime to our island, by reading the final chapter of the Journal together tonight. I'm ready for snow to end, and new life to come."

"Well, calendar-wise, spring is already here," I noted.

"I am," my dragon son added. I glanced at him to see a somewhat impish look in his eyes, and smiled myself. He knew what we were talking about.

"We could have finished the Journal a while ago," I went on, turning back to Roana, "but you kept holding us off. Why now though? FSK weather forecasts aren't showing any real improvement, at least over the next week."

"Because we've been surrounded by life, and affirmations of life today," she replied. "You kind of just need to be surrounded by continuings, as this last chapter is about endings."

"Endings?" I wondered. "But this tribe, village and the dragon caves still exist on this island, just as Hiccup and everyone else in the Journal began them."

"You'll see . . ." Roana said, stripping out of her tunics and leggings before grabbing our copy of the Journal off its special shelf near our family bedding and settling in as I did, too. Spring seemed to settle in extra close on my other side, while Substance and Rökkr just laid their heads down beside us, closing their eyes and ready to listen, as Tana and Tvö Höffut were nearby as well.

Roana passed me the leather-bound Journal as she, too relaxed extra close to me . . . not that I ever minded her unclothed presence. I opened the volume to where we had left an embossed and red-dyed leather bookmark amid the parchment pages, and began reading in English, translating as I went, as I had been the entire book.

Soon though, I began to understand what Roana was cautioning about.

"Dementia still runs in my family line," Roana sniffed, causing me to pause in my reading of the Journal. "My uncle has been lucky so far, but I saw my paternal grandfather die of it here. So this is very personal to me."

"I can see that," I replied very gently, giving her a kiss on the forehead.

"Part of me just wants to know though, that you'll never give up on me, if this happens . . ." she asked, looking at me.

I put the book down, taking Roana tightly into my arms. "Never," I promised, rocking her gently. "You will always have me, looking after you, and loving you . . . just like Johann here."

I felt tears silently fall from Roana against my chest as we held one another for a moment.

"Go on," she finally whispered against me. "The story gets even harder, for those who love, like we do . . ."

Not knowing quite what she was talking about, having never read this final chapter before, I picked up the Journal again and continued reading aloud. Then, even knowing it had occurred almost a thousand years ago, I spoke the words that change the tenor of everything we had read and shared in this Journal as a family to this point . . .

"My Astrid has died . . . and I am not far behind her now.

"She passed the way we both wanted her to . . . in my arms . . ."

I paused again, seeing that there were pages more to go. Hiccup was about to give all mates and spouses across time an unabashed preview of what it was like to lose a mate that one loved as much as life itself.

"This is another reason why divorce and separation are so rare here," Roana sniffed, tears falling from her eyes as she looked up at me again. "When you grow up, hearing this your entire life, love becomes a very precious and sacred thing. This is something you and I will confront one day."

"Hadn't thought about it before," I said, finding my own eyes misting up at the mere idea of it.

"This is Hiccup's greatest gift to us," she said, "along with the dragons, and this life we know here—this awareness of what life and love can be, and what it's like to lose them. I know we have chores, and life here seems a nearly constant series of primitive tasks; but I want to read this with you, year after year, just before springtime, and then vibrantly enjoy life with you when the flowers come . . . while we can."

Roana and I just held each other tightly, for moments—both of us appreciating that what we had would not last forever. Then, thinking of Tana and the longtime mate she had lost, I glanced over her way as I continued to embrace Roana. Tana was curled up tightly against her Zippleback companion, facing away from us as both the dragon's necks and heads were nestled tightly around her. Either she was understanding English more and more, or she knew the contents of the Journal's final chapter too well already. Likely it was both.

"Go on," Roana finally said against me. "I want you to experience the rest of the story, and I want to share it with you."

So I picked up the book again, and continued reading aloud. Together, we were drawn into experiencing what it was like to be old, and to lose those whom you loved most—to the point where death was now something to be looked forward to. I was relieved to find though that it was not some 'Grim Reaper', but love itself that claimed you when death came.

I could now fully see though why the Journal was so important, even sacred, among Berkers. It was at once a chronicle of a people, the foundation and touchstone of a tribe, and a vivid model of commitment and love. To me, it almost seemed a crime that this book was just in Old Norse however.

By the time I finished reading the last page and closed the Journal to await the onset of our next winter together—with maybe some refresher peeks through the summer—I was looking around at both my mate and my dragons, feeling like I had just miraculously gotten them back again . . . all of us young and in the prime of our lives, with so much more yet to go.

I reached to put the book back on its shelf and then lay down with my mate under the quilts. Even as Roana and I once again embraced one another fully, just looking and marveling at each other, I still thought of our older housemate and family member.

"Allt í lagi, Tana?" I asked, checking on her again, and wanting her to know she was definitely not forgotten.

"Love," she simply replied in English from amid her Zippleback on their bedding nearby.

Roana and I simply proceeded to do just that together, relaxing into the most gratifying sleep we ever knew, savouring that there were more chapters of our own story yet to come.


	40. Chapter 40

Life continued though, and finally spring (the season, that is) returned to New Berk around the end of March. I had never been so grateful to see a simple patch of green grass in my life—even though in thinking about it, my childhood in central Manitoba hadn't been a whole heck of a lot different, climate-wise.

Substance and I began flying most every chance we got—first via tentative forays above open grasslands in the valley fields beyond our village, then before long, out over the ocean from the ceremonial area.

"You must think you are flying!" my dragon coached as we barely dodged a sea stack west of the village late one sunny afternoon. "Stop mentally telling me, 'Left, right, up, down.' Have told you that before. My wings are yours. We are one. Fly like Jórunn did using her arms with Miracle if you must, but fly us in your mind, with your eyes, so I can fly us in the air!"

"Alright," I accepted. "Let's try again."

I now focused on the ocean horizon ahead of us. Then my eyes tracked to the left, leading Substance and I banking into a turn. I began to feel that turn inside myself as if I was making it, imagining wings from my shoulders flying us while I angled my head as well. This seemed to be working better.

Then I focused on a sea stack again, about half way down the rocky column. Substance was now flying us right towards it at a down angle. I then just looked smoothly away to the left, imagining myself making a swoop as I did, and lo and behold, we smoothly turned to the left as well. I was beginning to tune into an awareness now, opening myself to the two of us truly flying as one.

"That's it," Substance encouraged beneath me, seeming to be getting the input and guidance she was wanting. "You flying us. Now, target something."

Focusing us out over the ocean towards the west and the late afternoon sun again, I spotted a large log floating below us. Taking note of where it was, I focused us into a banked turn to the right, angling us up, before turning us sharply around and downward, aiming for a spot in the water ahead of the log, just like Substance and I had originally trained together as Dragon and Rider to intercept trespassers.

As we went into a screaming dive toward the surface, I refocused us on the floating log. I barely had to think it before Substance fired a powerful blast as I banked us up and away to the left this time.

_KAABOOOOM!_ the blast echoed as I looked back to see just charred and smoking chunks of the log remaining on the surface.

"We did it, Substance!" I cheered, reaching a hand to firmly rub her neck as well.

"I can feel it, from you," she confirmed. "But I also sense Outsiders, on boat . . . distance away on right."

"Well, let's go home then, as there are no clouds or fog here to conceal us," I said, quickly looking around.

"Take us home, Lannce," she invited.

"Me . . . flying you," I marvelled as I thought us into a banking left turn as I looked ahead.

"Hiccup fly Toothless with fin," Substance replied as her wings did their thing. "You do same with sight and thought. No different."

"That's why you're the Guardian of Memories," I admired.

"And your companion," she added. " . . . Wait," Substance then hesitated.

I could see her pivoting her head slightly but rapidly from side to side, her ears and all her senses other than sight now working.

"We turn around," Substance decided, banking us sharply to the right and heading southwest over the open ocean now instead.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"Outsiders are whalers," Substance said. "I sense peaceful whale near them. They see her."

"Substance," I cautioned, "we can't intervene. You and I both know that."

"But whales, dragons, kindred intelligences," she replied, now flying us southwest across the open ocean anyway. "We speak through thought over time. They find our downed, our lost at sea sometimes. Let us know where they are."

"Substance, what do we do when we get there?" I posed.

This time, my dragon didn't answer. But she wasn't turning away either.

"To reveal ourselves to a group of Outsiders, in their element," I now warned, "is to betray our people."

"To allow death of an innocent when one can do something is crime against harmony, even Spirit," she answered.

"What are our options?" I pressed. "Destroying the boat, likely killing its crew in Norwegian waters is a crime—one that our nation would have to answer to Norway for. It's not like it was in Hiccup's time, when a people could make their own laws, dispense their own senses of justice with impunity, and mysteries would go unsolved."

"I know!" Substance barked in anger now.

"Remember," I patiently added, "whaling is unfortunately a legal activity in Norway. Our Outside MPs have been unable to do anything about that in the Norwegian Storting, and we don't want to upset relations with our neighbour, especially now that we have joint troops with them on the island."

"We dragons could prove whales and dolphins are fellow sentients," she said.

"You want to go to Oslo?" I asked.

"Sometimes, I do," she replied.

"Substance," I hesitantly reminded her, almost feeling like we were switching roles now, "this is what life on Earth is sadly about. Life kills other life, even plant eaters."

"This pointless killing," my dragon answered.

"We are all consumed sometime, aren't we?" I said, using her own past words to me to make her think. "Who is to say when that time is or isn't? Or if whalers can't consume, along with mouths, flames or microbes, as you have told me?"

Substance slowed in the air now, but did not stop. "What if I were in trouble outside?" she then countered to me, still facing ahead.

"Well . . ." I sighed, checking my Knight's sash and harness, "I have five syringes on me. If the crew is bigger than that, we're in trouble. Plus I have my sidearm as well. But if they have guns, beside their harpoon cannon—again, we're in trouble."

"She surfaces," Substance said as her wings dug into the air and she sped up once more. "They firing . . ."

I could then hear a soft boom that sounded like it was just over the horizon ahead.

"She hit . . ." my dragon now said sadly.

"Can we help?" I asked.

"It fatal," Substance sensed, almost coming to a stop in the air, her wings braking, then hovering. "Blood washes through her. It cannot be stopped. She knows it."

"Send her comforting thoughts," I said, laying a hand on my dragon's neck.

"She going quickly, her lungs fill with blood," Substance continued to relay. "Let go, sister. Let go. I tell others . . . She drowning, struggling . . ."

We then hovered, seemingly in helpless silence for a moment over the quiet oceans below as the late afternoon sun was waning, bathing us both in a bright orange light amid the surrounding blues of sea and sky. Even my mind was all too clearly imagining what was happening just over the horizon.

"She gone," my dragon finally said.

"Do what you pledged, Substance," I gently encouraged her. "Tell her others."

My dragon now turned her head somewhat to the right, facing northwest as we continued to almost hover at a standstill in the air. "Make contact," she reported. "They know, and are avoiding area now, expressing sad gratitude, and prayers for their lost one."

"Let's go home, Substance," I counselled.

"Guide me," she now invited.

"We're well beyond land here," I said, looking behind us. "I can give you a rough direction, but can't you sense where home is?"

"Yes," she replied, turning her head further to the right. "Just wasn't focusing on that. There they are," she continued, turning us around now in the air and beginning to pick up speed again as she pointed us northeast towards our island once more.

"So the thoughts of others—they're like tuning in radio transmissions?" I wondered.

"Yes," she replied. "Get those all too much. Now I understand English, BBC Radio can be truly annoying." I almost smiled at that one. "Life sad," she added though.

"It can seem that way at times," I agreed, rubbing my left hand on her neck again. "But it isn't all sad though. We're together, and when I'm with you now, I rarely feel bad or sad anymore . . . lectured at times," I qualified, "but that's about it."

"You right," she then said. "We Night Furies taskmasters."

"Lance!" we then heard a female voice call out ahead of us.

"Roana? Rökkr?" I loudly replied as I saw a black speck coming towards us rapidly as it became a Night Fury and Rider. The two of them circled wide around Substance and I, before slowing beside us on our right.

"Take and wear your radio next time," Roana almost breathlessly said to me. "We've been trying to reach you."

"Sorry," I apologised, almost bracing myself for a 'doghouse' lecture again.

"But good, you're headed home," my mate responded instead more calmly however. "FSK radar has detected a vessel just southwest of here, and we saw you two practicing out this way."

"We know," I said. "Substance had sensed them as well."

"Lannce . . ." my dragon now mysteriously interjected, as if she was trying to stop me.

"She said they were whalers," I finished, glancing her way uncertainly.

"Substance . . ." Roana now sighed.

"Wait . . . she's gone out to them before?" I now wondered.

"She sank a whaleship at night, some years ago after Amund died," my mate replied.

"Was on fish run," my dragon countered. "Surprised."

"The Guardian of Memories at the time made her admit the truth to us," Roana continued. "Fortunately our communications with the Outside were at a low point, so we just never had to explain what happened."

"Alerted Dragon and Rider on duty in air. We flew straight to lifeboat station," Substance justified. "Crew rescued within hour. No deaths."

"She was put on supervised probation under the Guardian of Memories after that," Roana continued.

"Guardian already mentoring me in caves anyway, after Amund's death," Substance noted. "But it how I became Guardian of Memories," she added, almost smugly.

Wearing his own leather strap of office in addition to his saddle around his neck, Rökkr now began grunting as he looked sternly at Substance with one eye while we flew side by side.

"He's saying to Substance, 'I know you talk to and care about whales,'" Roana conveyed. "'But you will not endanger us, especially now that I am Great Guardian, your full equal. Your human companion and guide trusts you. Do not abuse that trust again.'"

Being chewed out by the Great Guardian, who was also her mate, clearly got to Substance. She was subdued now as we flew the rest of the way home, saying nothing further. Rökkr seemed content for the moment to let her think on what he had warned her.

Before long, our island was in sight once more and I mentally took over flying, guiding Substance to a freshly exposed patch of commons grass amid the lingering snow in front of our home. She smoothly landed us, as Rökkr and Roana landed as well. Still, nothing was being said as I got off of her. Substance was hanging her head, her vacant eyes still looking down in sadness and shame.

"Guys," I finally sighed, breaking the silence, "let's put this behind us, okay? Substance, I forgive you, and I still trust you. You were fighting a wrong, as a Guardian should. But just as Hiccup and Toothless discovered, sometimes wrongs aren't ours to fix. All we can do is pray, and send healing to the situation. If you like, I will kneel with you and do that right now, as your companion."

I moved in front of my dragon and knelt before her, embracing her large, black head as we both began humming, seeking harmony with our souls and our voices. For the first time now, it struck me . . . this is why dragons hum in prayer—seeking harmony. It doesn't have to be the same note or tone; it rarely is. The tones just have to be harmonious. I found myself smiling at this realization, as Substance and I, and soon Rökkr and Roana were all just humming with our eyes closed, kneeling and embracing one another on the commons grass.

Soon, the rest of the village was stopping around us and joining in, humming in prayer as well. While the dragons probably knew what was going on, the reasons behind our praying, the humans didn't. But it didn't matter. One of us was feeling badly, and with the help of her companion, was reaching out in prayer to make it right—both for her, and for the situation.

I hadn't been much for prayer in church growing up. It all seemed so . . . contrived. The liturgies were so formal. At times it felt like the church congregation were submitting a parliamentary bill for Divine assent. The liturgical prayers were admittedly poetic though, even beautiful in their own way at times—almost like the 'opera' we sung in some of the classical hymns. But as I joined in the recitations, even on my knees amid the wooden pews, it didn't feel like I was talking to a living, relatable presence. Here though, among the dragons, seeking harmony alongside even the Divine seemed the simplest and most natural thing in the world. It perhaps even felt like our tribe's service to the world.

After a moment, Substance ended our collective prayer, as was her role in our tribe, her voice going silent. I stopped as well, the silence spreading outward from the two of us.

"Wish I could show you gratitude I feel, with my eyes," Substance finally said, breaking the silence as I moved back on my knees a little to look at her, while still stroking her head with my left hand.

"I'm getting it," I quietly assured.

"I not abuse your trust again," she pledged.

"I wasn't worried about that," I replied, rubbing her head. "It was worth it to you, so it became worth it to me, too. I wouldn't go into battle for just anyone, you know."

Substance just nudged me, hard—knocking me back a little on my feet as I smiled.

"Rökkr," I then said, turning to him. "I ask that you love your mate tonight. It's important, to me."

He looked at me briefly, probably trying to probe why. But soon, he just nodded once in acceptance of my request.

Roana came up beside me as I rose again to my feet. "Telling Night Furies, even the Great Guardian, what to do," she breathed in my ear. "I'm impressed."

"Duty should not trump all else, especially love," I simply replied turning to my mate.

But then I began to feel something, or someone, was suddenly missing. "Where's Substance?" I wondered as I turned to see that she was no longer where she had just been beside me.

Looking around, I spotted her however, walking down the commons towards the ceremonial area and the cliff at the foot of the village.

"I'd better go to her," I decided. "Mind getting dinner ready?" I asked Roana.

"Tana and Tvö Höffut probably already have that handled," she assured, releasing me anyway.

"Substance," I called after my dragon, seeing she was walking through the ceremonial area, approaching the cliff beyond.

"I know where cliff is," she replied as I caught up with her, both of us basically at its edge now.

"I couldn't help wanting to be sure," I said. "Why are you here though? What more needs to be done?"

"No body here to burn and send on its way," my dragon replied, "but there is a life and spirit that should be honoured as day ends."

"Pray again?" I wondered.

"No," she said, "just be . . . accept, become part of whole."

We both sat for a moment at the edge of that cliff, amid the ash remnants of countless dragon and human bodies that had been cremated there over time. I managed to pick up some ash with my left hand, releasing it as a gentle breeze took the ash out beyond the cliff. The sea soothingly surged and washed beneath and in front of us, seeming to cleanse both Substance and I.

Then I spotted something out amid the waters beyond the rocks. First one spout, then two, even several more as dark backs with small fins subtly arched at the surface.

"Substance—" I began to say.

"I know," she replied, cutting me off. "We talk before. Some in village think I just pray and meditate with Spirit here. But I talk with them . . . maintain relations between tribes. Now, they gather, for funeral. They honour me, invite me to participate."

"You want to go out there?" I asked.

"Lannce . . ." she said, her voice breaking with a gratitude I could hear.

I hopped up into the saddle she was still wearing and we vaulted out over the cliff once more, soaring downward and then low over the gentle sea. Sensing where they were, Substance first turned northwest and then turned south, lining up and slowing over the pod. The tribe of whales surfaced again just a few metres beneath my dragon and I, their sprays erupting around us. I could even smell their fishy breaths.

Substance flapped her wings to stay airborne, circling us around to the left before we were skimming more slowly over them again, pacing over them as they swam. We all then faced southwest as the sun's orb set beyond the horizon further to the west, the sea making the only sounds now besides the flapping of Substance's wings as she came to almost a hover.

Then, there was just a moment's peaceful silence, the sea waves just gently washing beneath us. Even the whales beneath us now just seemed to float at the surface, all of us facing one direction . . . to the southwest.

"Life has been honoured," my dragon finally said, breaking the tranquillity around us. "Harmony restored. They will help us when needed. Take me home, Lannce."

"It's that simple?" I wondered. "Nothing more to it?"

"They most advanced beings on Earth," she said as we began to bank and climb away into the air. "I honoured whales allow me in their presence. They have nothing, and want nothing. They spread harmony, wandering Earth's oceans . . . a source of harmony itself. They tell me just now they even give themselves to humans and lesser predators—a service, even a means of going home to Spirit. Death, transition never comfortable, but they accept it. Help me to as well. They invite me to join them in a future life, but say I still have learning to do, as do even they."

I didn't know what to think.

"They welcome you as well," my dragon conveyed. "Say you show promise."

My perception of life, of everything, had changed once more as Substance and I turned back towards our island.

"Still not used to other intelligences sharing this planet, are you?" my dragon perceptively wondered.

"I'm working at it," I sighed in her saddle.

"You look out into space for them, but not see those already here," she added as we approached our island once more.

"Hey, I'm here, with you, aren't I?" I responded.

"Sorry . . ." my dragon said as I tried to concentrate on flying us back past the grey, rocky sea stacks now to a safe landing once more in our village.

_Not now,_ I thought to her, _concentrating_. I willed Substance to beat her wings harder, gaining some altitude to clear one of the stacks. I banked us a little to the left over and around its flat, partly-grassed top, before I targeted that same patch of grass again halfway along our village commons in front of our house with a gaze. My dragon's wings then braked us in the air as we slowed and descended, landing smoothly almost right where we had before.

"If I didn't know better," Roana said, drawing a thickly-fleeced coat around her as she descended from our house porch, "I'd say there was no blindness here."

"He not," Substance replied. "I just his wings now."

"You know that's not true, companion," I said, sliding out of her saddle, removing my rider's gloves and laying a hand on her thick, black neck.

Substance just closed her vacant eyes as we stood together. I could tell she was seeking peace once more, her centre, as she sometimes did. It was her way of coping with her blindness.

"Want to pray again?" I gently invited, looking down at her large head.

"Prayed enough," she said. "Spirit tired of hearing from me. I am."

Roana and I shared a concerned and worried look.

"Substance," I then said though, "you know the way into our house, don't you?"

"Yes," she replied with some puzzlement.

"Guide us—you and me," I then invited, closing my eyes as I stood beside her neck, my back surrounded by her left wing while I kept my right hand on her head.

"You trip and fall," she warned me as we nonetheless began moving together towards the steps leading up to our porch and front door.

Sure enough, I hit the very first wooden step with the front of my ankle instead of the bottom of my foot, and I fell flat against the steps, hard. My nose, upper lip and teeth stung from the sharp impact they suffered against the top step.

"Told you," my dragon knowingly replied. "Even feel your pain. Should not have done that."

"How else do I show my dragon I love her?" I posed, putting my left hand to my now bloodied lip and nose while nonetheless keeping my eyes closed. "Even help her to feel better than she does?"

Substance paused in silence for a moment next to me. She was halfway up those steps while I turned and sat against them, nonetheless keeping my eyes closed. I now felt Roana quietly kneeling down and moving my hand aside to press some gauze against my nose and lips.

"If you want me to guide you," Substance finally replied, "just sit on my neck. It not hurt us as much when I trip, unlike you. My snout harder."

I smiled—I think we both did—as I rose and remounted Substance's saddle, still with my eyes closed, and she conveyed us up those stairs. But before I knew it . . . _Bang!_ went my forehead against the top of the doorway as we entered our house.

"Duck," Substance said, just a split-second too late.

Now I had two smarting places on my face to press my hands against. I could almost sense Roana shaking her head next to me as I felt her once more dab the gauze at my nose.

"Not very good guide," Substance sighed coming to a stop just inside our house.

"Hey, I'mb an Ýsa," I said without the use of my nose at the moment. "It'zz just the family 'inner klutz' here."

"How long you beat yourself up?" my dragon asked.

"As longk as you are doingk the same," I replied.

My dragon remained silent for a moment, lowering her head. But I could feel a smile within her.

"Poinnt taken," she finally said.

"Lance," Roana then interjected as I could feel her fingers probing the sides of my nose, " . . . I think you broke your nose."

"Nothingk you cann't fix," I assured, now opening my eyes.

"Stop making me work after hours. I'm supposed to be 'off the clock' here," my mate half-smiled as she gently daubed my nose and upper again with fresh gauze, while helping me dismount from Substance.

"I ennjoy the attenntion," I quipped. The mood was now lightened in my house, among all of us. Substance was carefully but gratefully nudging the side of her large head against me as I now sat down on the family bedding while Roana positioned pillows behind me to relax against before beginning to treat me. Even Tana was smiling in the cooking area as a stew simmered and was ready for serving.

My broken nose had been worth it.

— — — — —

A week or so later though, as our island continued to green and warm around us under days of increasing sun; with a bandage on my nose, I found myself once again at work inside the bunker, examining test cultures under a microscope. With everything around our tribe seemingly settled and the harshness of winter over, I had finally been able to return to my painstaking work of first devising an enzyme treatment, even a regimen, to provide a lasting fix for the dragons' calcium deficiencies, before turning to my second and even longer task of assessing the various dragon species' degrees of inbreeding and devising resolutions for that as well.

As my fingers instinctively worked the keys of the cell counter next to me, I felt Roana's arms silently slip around my torso as she just laid herself against my back.

"I'd like a computer here to tabulate and analyze these test results," I said without breaking my concentration or pace. "Could you get me a one of those new portables that Tor and the FSK guys have been saying are supposed to be coming out, through either the FSK or the Barony? Preferably a state-of-the-art Texas Instruments?"

"Yeah," I heard almost breathed against me in a subdued tone. "I'll get on it."

"What's wrong?" I asked, looking up from the microscope, a feeling of concern growing in me from her half-hearted response.

"Why don't you come outside for a while," Roana said, still resting against me, "enjoy some of this sun?"

"What is it?" I quietly repeated, now turning on my stool towards her knowing something wasn't right.

"I have two communiqués I want to share with you," she said, seemingly with little emotion one way or the other. "Well, a letter and a telex. Would you come and read them with me?"

"What's in them?" I wondered.

"I glanced at one of them. But I want you to read the other one first . . . to both of us," she replied, offering a compact, light blue airmail letter to me, while holding what looked like pages of a military telex back with the other.

"It's from Ran," I noted, looking at the small letter's return address, " . . . and he's in Africa now?"

"Let's go outside," Roana encouraged, still emotionless.

"Okay . . ." I gently agreed, rising to my feet as we both turned to leave through the bunker's partly opened wooden doors. The sun was so bright outside compared with the dim, primitive electric lighting of the bunker's interior that I did squint almost in blindness at first.

"Want me to guide you?" I heard Roana say, finally with something of a smile.

"I'd appreciate it," I said with something of a smile back as well, while adjusting my eyes to the brightness now around me.

Roana simply guided us both to sit down on the grass nearby, as I then carefully opened what turned out to be a multi-paged airmail letter.

"Want it in Norse or English?" I queried, looking at the runes inside that Ran had reverted to writing in within the letter.

"English is fine," my mate said, once again leaning against me. "This sun feels nice," she added, almost in a distracting way.

Giving her a curious sideways glance, I nonetheless began translating Ran's letter aloud.

"Lance and Roana," I began. "I took your advice, but found I could not stand Oslo, or any busy human city. A counselor the Barony assigned to me though suggested I help on a relief mission, as the doctor I am.

"So, I am now here in Africa, assigned to a Norwegian Peoples' Aid team visiting small villages in the bush as they call it. While I could have chosen missions in relatively peaceful Guinea or Kenya, I volunteered with a team making relief incursions into southern Somalia and Ethiopia from Kenya, as I felt I and my medical and Dragon Rider training were needed more there.

"While I do treat people in the villages we visit, my real and unique gift, it turns out, is working with the elephants that convey us. We had just one elephant handler available to us, but he was bitten by a venomous snake one night early on in our first expedition, and had to be returned to Kenya with part of our Norwegian military escort. That is not for discussion by the way. The Norwegian government will not acknowledge deployment of its forces in unauthorized or uninvited areas, but did not want relief teams of its citizens venturing into possibly dangerous areas alone. They wear military-issue vests with Norwegian patches and carry light assault rifles, but otherwise dress in civilian khakis and sunhats—just all alike—as well as helping with the triage and treatment of villagers we encounter.

"But I have somehow developed a rapport with the elephants. They do not speak to me as dragons would—but I saw a peaceful intelligence in their eyes, and they seemed to recognize and appreciate that I did. These elephants and I, we understand one another. I seem able to perceive when they are hungry or thirsty, tired or hurt, and in return, they do most anything I ask, with my barely having to ask at all.

"I am sending this while we are briefly back in Kenya, but we are about to go on another mission into Somalia. Even though it is too hot for me at times, and I have forgotten what cold feels like, I have decided to stay and work here for now. I am needed here, and feel deeply appreciated for everything I do—especially by the elephants. They somehow bring me a peace I haven't known with dragons . . . probably because the elephants don't talk to me, at least in a language I understand.

"I hope you both, and our tribe, are as well and content as I now am though.

"With good thoughts and regards . . . Ran," I finished.

"Wish I'd read that one first," Roana quietly said, resting herself against me from the side on the grass outside the bunker.

"Why?" I asked, sensing something however.

"Read this," she now sniffed, handing me the folded telex on sheets of almost equally thin white paper, " . . . out loud again, please?"

I took the telex from her, unfolding it and noting its top proclaiming, 'DET KGL. FORSVARSDEPARTEMENT, OSLO', with 'KLASSIFISERT' underneath.

"Hmmm . . . the rest of this is in English," I noted, skimming the black text underneath.

"The ministry knows you and I too well by now," Roana sniffed with a laugh beside me. "Read it," she encouraged as she rested all the closer against my side.

"To: Leadership, Nation of Berk," I began. "To whom it may concern . . .

"The Norwegian Government and Defence Ministry regret to inform you that Doctor Ran Jorgenson was killed in action . . ." I paused in shock before continuing, "defending his team and a group of nomadic villagers they were protectively escorting, while en route back from the vicinity of Faafxa . . ." I tried to pronounce, "Faafxadhhuun, Somalia."

Roana now gripped her arms around me, burying her face against my neck as I continued to read amid my own shock.

"It is reported that his team were surprised by insurgents, who immediately shot the team's three escorting Norwegian soldiers first. Doctor Jorgenson however immediately dove to take one of the soldiers' rifles however and returned fire, according to witnesses, fighting off the insurgents with expert firing of the gun, driving them back into the bush. Then taking command, Jorgenson ordered the team to treat and take the villagers with them to the safety of Kenya, a day's walk to the southwest, even directing the soldiers' bodies to be recovered and taken by one of the team's elephants as well. Suffering a bullet wound himself, Jorgenson nonetheless protected the retreating group's rear, firing at times to keep the following insurgents at bay.

"Exhausting his ammunition, but nearly at the Kenyan border, Jorgenson radioed the Kenyan military for support, using a Norwegian military radio. Faced with another insurgent attack, he ordered the rest of the team to rush for the border, roughly a kilometre away, as he turned, riding one elephant, to slow or decoy the following insurgents.

"Team witnesses report that he and his elephant fell amid a hail of insurgent gunfire as Kenyan soldiers made a brief incursion, crossing the border to rescue him. They were not in time, however.

"The Norwegian Crown and Government wish to convey their profound gratitude for Doctor Jorgenson's rescue and heroism towards both the rest of his Norwegian medical team, and to the Somali men, women and children he undertook to protect as well. His Majesty therefore invites the Berk Nation and Barony to send a delegation to Oslo, in a manner agreeable to Berk that will preserve its desired secrecy, to receive the appropriate gratitude and honours Norway wishes to bestow upon Doctor Jorgenson for his service and heroism.

"With deepest respects and condolences, Jan Tolefsen, Minister of Defence, General Lars Andersen, Chief of Defence," I concluded, looking up from the telex.

"No offence to you, Lance," Roana sniffed, "but this almost made me regret, for just an instant, not marrying Ran . . . not seeing this in him."

I just turned and held Roana tightly. "None of us here could see that in him," I said sadly.

"It's probably why he felt he had to go," Roana agreed, her face still buried against my neck. "Ohhh, life . . ." she tearfully sighed, "why does it have to be like this?"

"He knew he was courting danger," I quietly noted.

"That's why he chose what he did," my mate sniffed, "to prove himself, to himself—even more so than to us."

"Well he did," I assured. "But these," I continued as I looked at both the blue and white papers now in my right hand, "these are going in our archives. They will be how Ran is remembered among us from now on."

Roana now openly wept against my side and neck. I couldn't help tearing up some as well.

"He's in Spirit now, even Valhalla," I sighed, trying to comfort both my mate, and myself. "Partying it up as perhaps the most valiant among our honoured dead . . . right along with Árvekni, Roald, and all the others. Skal, my friend," I said, looking to the sky, holding up my right hand and those letters up towards him in the only toast I could make at the moment, " . . . skal."

— — — — —

Our chance to mourn Ran in peace though was short-lived.

"M'am, Sir," Tor, our FSK Executive Officer came almost running across the commons, "an Air Force helicopter will be arriving for you both soon—within an hour." Sensing something was up, Rökkr wasn't far behind him.

"Okay," I breathed. "Thank you, Tor. Rökkr," I then said to our dragon, "we've just learned that Ran has been killed in action in Africa. Roana and I have to go to Oslo. Please call a village assembly, quickly, so that we can inform everyone before we have to go."

Rökkr gave us a single nod before raising his head towards the skies and issuing a multi-toned bellow I hadn't really heard before, repeating it twice before quieting and lowering his head, looking at us once more.

"G-Gett Sssubbsssttaannnccce," he then stammered to me, before quickly turning back to our house.

"Well, well, he's finally trying English," I smiled, drying my own tears that I had been sharing with Roana.

"He knows you'll never get Dragon," my mate sniffed next to me, "and he can see I'm a mess right now."

I just turned my face to give Roana a kiss on her forehead before she looked up at me.

"Can the bandage come off my nose?" I asked.

"Just don't bump it against anything," she cautioned with a tearful smile as she gently began peeling it off, "including me."

I then looked up to see the village was already assembling around Roana and I, just as Rökkr had requested, while Rökkr, Spring, Tana and Tvö Höfut were all coming across the commons around Substance, through the gathering crowd.

"Just do the English, as usual, for the rest of the FSK and their families," my mate advised, both of us rising to our feet as our household, and tribal leadership, gathered around.

"Ran did tell me my Norse wasn't very good," I sighed.

"To us, your Norse just has a thick and hard to understand North American accent," my mate noted. "We know you can't help it though."

"And you all couldn't have told me this before?" I wondered. "Or helped me work on it?"

"I have been trying," Roana answered with a kiss to my cheek nonetheless. "But hey, we're co-chiefs, right? You just do the English, and I do the Norse."

I just looked at Roana for a second, cracking a smile as she tilted her head and carefully gave me a kiss on the lips. "Showtime, boss," she breathed.

"Thank you," I gratefully said to her as we both then turned towards the crowd around us.

"Roana and I don't have much time," I began as Roana translated to Norse beside me, "but she and I have to fly to Oslo—by helicopter, unfortunately—as one of our own has died on the outside . . . heroically, defending others. It is Ran," I said. There was no need to include his last name. "He fought, as guardian, to protect both his Norwegian medical team, and the Somali villagers they were treating in Africa. He, and an elephant he had probably bonded with as companion," I smiled briefly, imagining that irony for Ran, who had previously refused to bond with a dragon, "they faced down armed insurgents, and died, together . . . to allow the others to escape across the Kenyan border.

"We," I continued, "all of us, misjudged him at times. But while we will remember him honestly, with his faults . . . we will remember him, as guardian . . . remember them both, as Elephant and Rider," I concluded, putting it in terms unique but understandable to our Berk tribe.

A sad but sincere cheering and roaring broke out across the village, as I could already hear the rapid beat of approaching helicopter blades in the distance to the east.

"You're a bit off, Tor," I quietly admonished him as he stood in battle dress next to Roana, I, and our dragons.

"Sorry, sir," he apologised.

"Roana and I must go now," I concluded as the crowd quieted once more. I looked to the east though, seeing several of our Dragons and Riders surrounding the helicopter as it descended into our valley, still ringed by snowy mountains. It was good to see our Dragon Riders on the job. Everything else was as it should be. "We will bring Ran back," I assured as Roana finished translating beside me.

The villagers then parted for Roana, myself, and our family as we began walking home across the commons to quickly pack for our unexpected trip to the Outside.

"The cultures . . ." I remembered, stopping us only steps from our home as I glanced back towards the bunker.

"Anders and the medic can finish those," my mate advised.

"Anders!" I called, seeing him among the dispersing crowd. "I have some calcium cultures under the microscope in the bunker. Could you finish logging them for me? Ask for help if you need it!"

"Já!" he called back with a smile. His large Gronkle was right next to him.

_Dragons do make us better persons,_ I mused to myself with a smile turning towards home once more _. . . even him._

"Back into uniform again," Roana now sighed beside me as we resumed walking up to our house while I could hear the helicopter touching down not far away in the fields just above our village.

"But what the heck do _I _wear?" I wondered. "I have no Outsider clothes anymore. You and Rökkr even burned the last old shirt and pants I had in our fireplace over the winter with great ceremony and relish."

"You're getting a suit," Roana decided on the spot, looking me up and down. "Tor," she directed him without taking her eyes off me, "radio the Baroness, and request that Lance be fitted with a suit appropriate to his leadership position . . . dark, with pinstripes like the king, I think."

"Yes, m'am," our XO replied as he now followed us inside our house, likely in case we had any further last minute instructions.

"And, Tor," my mate added, "you're roughly Lance's size. Could he borrow one of your service dress uniforms for now? Maybe we could get Lance a U.S. Air Force colonel's uniform through Brigader Husa when we reach his air base. They do have a NATO reconnaissance squadron there."

"Y-Yes, m'am," Tor replied with some reluctance as he eyed me for size as well.

"I'd prefer to remain a well-dressed civilian," I gently countered however. "My intelligence rank is classified, and besides, that 'me' is supposed to be dead. My goatee and longer hair now would be non-regulation anyway, even wearing Tor's uniform."

"So you want go out of here a Viking?" my mate posed. "At least until we hook you up with a tailor?"

"It's who I am," I replied with a faint smile, more aware though of just how primitive my tan tunic, dark brown sheepskin vest, rough cloth pants and leather boots were, " . . . at least now anyway."

"Okay . . ." she sighed. "But you're putting on your ceremonial best, not that well-worn, everyday 'Barbarian' stuff you have on right now. Even Ran left in a suit . . . even if it was fifteen years old."

"I thought you always wanted me as a Viking," I quipped, "that I even looked good in 'Barbarian'."

"Not when we're headed for the Outside," she responded, "especially for the palace in Oslo."

"So the inner 'wife' in you finally emerges," I jibed.

Roana just shook her head, finally cracking a smile, before I saw tears emerging again from her eyes. I took her into my embrace, holding her for a moment.

"I'm okay . . ." she finally said, embracing me as well.

"Just wanted to make sure," I gently replied with another kiss to her forehead.

We were then interrupted by a knock outside our open door. "Hello, sir and m'am," a different but familiar voice said.

"Oleg!" I recognized, turning to greet him enthusiastically.

"Your suit, sir," our close-cropped blonde Outside Guardian said, wearing a well-tailored grey suit himself once again, and offering me a black, zippered garment bag. "The shoes are inside, complete with two pairs of socks."

"Saved by the Guardians!" Roana smiled, releasing me as she turned to gather her service dress uniform from the nearby trunk where it was stored.

"But . . . how?" I stammered in surprise.

"We were notified of the situation, knew your sizes, and what you would be needing to accept Oslo's invitation," he tallied. "Our apologies though that it's off the rack rather than tailored, but I do have a needle and thread to make any last-minute adjustments."

"Oleg," I sighed in amazement, " . . . you are a Guardian."

"Thank you, sir," he smiled. "But if I might suggest changing? The helicopter is waiting."

"You'll be with us, as our aide," I said, more as a directive than a request.

"Every step of the way, sir," he assured. "I am the most familiar with you and your needs, and ever since Outside helicopters started flying here, bypassing the lifeboat station, this is the first real duty I've had now in some time."

With Roana grabbing the screened off area on the far side of the house to change behind, I just decided to change where I was near the front of our house, accepting Oleg's able help as a valet while I did. Thank goodness our FSK had been supplying me with boxers once more, even though they didn't last long here.

"Tor," I directed, finding I was still holding the letter and telex as I turned to undress and change though, "take these and put them in the bunker archives. Start a new file on Doctor Ran Jorgenson. You'll be working with Substance though, as she has the key."

"Yes, sir," our XO replied as he and Substance briefly turned their heads toward one another.

As I then pulled my tunic off over my head, I wrinkled my nose though. "Uh, Oleg . . ." I wondered, "could I have a chance to shower before we see anyone out there?"

"Of course, sir," he assured, taking my tunic from me, "and there is a second shirt for you as well in the bag. But may I offer some deodorant for now?" he then invited, offering me a small encased stick of it.

"You're making Outside life far too convenient and inviting, Oleg," I smiled.

"If you were living out there, sir, you wouldn't have me," he replied.

— — — — —

Soon though, Roana and I were both dressed as respectable Outsiders—her as an FSA major, and me as a pinstriped noble or businessman . . . maybe a Hollywood type, considering my longer brown hair and goatee now. I had to remember how to tie the dark silver tie, but Oleg of course assisted me. Once again, I couldn't help admiring Roana as she came up beside me in her green uniform without the military winter parka this time, even though she was now a few months pregnant with our baby. It didn't show much though.

"I presume we are changing aircraft at Ørland Air Base as usual, Oleg?" Roana said, straightening her green beret beside me with the gold king's cypher and crest positioned above her left eye.

"Yes, m'am," our Outside Guardian assured. "The baroness and her personal jet will be waiting."

"Good," my mate accepted. "Lance and I will be briefly showering and shaving there between flights. Please make it so."

Oleg just turned and gave a glance to Tor, indicating Tor would be radioing in the requested arrangements. Our XO indicated his agreement by quietly nodding back.

"Somehow," I noted as we now appeared ready to go out to the waiting helicopter, "I forget that I'm a head of state when I'm here."

"You're representing all of us out there, sir," Oleg assured. "The first chief to do so in a long time."

"So Roald did go to the Outside once upon a time," I surmised, looking between Oleg and Roana.

"He went out as an aide, even Guardian, sir," Oleg replied, "much like Roana has. But he never went out as chief."

"The previous chief, then?" I guessed again. "During World War Two?"

"Correct, sir," he confirmed. "But come, the helicopter, and everything else, are waiting."

Not having any idea who that previous chief was, I was content to let the subject drop.

"Tor," I then said, turning to our XO, "take care of the village—"

Rökkr interrupted me though with a sharp sort of 'ahem!' . . . in a growling, dragon kind of way.

"Rökkr," my mate calmed him—and corrected me, "the village, tribe and island are yours to protect. Tor, ensure you have someone who can translate Dragon beside you at all times. You report to him in our stead, understood?"

"Y-Yes, m'am," our XO replied nervously, then stiffening to attention.

"Substance . . ." I then said to my dragon, "I wish we could fly to Ørland, like we did during the battle, and then onto Oslo. You sure you wouldn't want to come with us? You are our senior elder . . . as Roana reminds me here."

"Sir," Oleg almost whispered to me though, "we would need a larger helicopter."

"I stay," Substance decided with a gentle smile, her vacant eyes looking past either side of my waist. "Serve tribe with Rökkr."

"I'll convey your feelings about whales to the king," I assured, stroking her head.

"Politely," she requested. "As I reminded, tribe come first."

"We all come first," I gently countered, bending over in my now strangely constricting new suit to embrace her large, black head.

"It's time, Lance," Roana prodded me however. "Tvö Höfut, Tana, annast heimili okkar og fjölskyldu," she said, turning to them, asking them to care for our home and family.

"Feels weird, going without any luggage," I sighed as both Roana and Oleg were now practically ushering me out the front door of our house.

"Everything you need will be waiting for you, sir," our Outside Guardian assured as he toted the black garment bag with my one spare shirt on his left arm behind my mate and I now.

"Maybe we should go back to getting in and out of here by dragon again," I sighed wistfully as we turned up the village commons towards the helicopter, past most of the other villagers and a number of dragons. They couldn't help almost staring at Roana and I in our smart Outsider attires. "This . . . it just doesn't feel right—" I added as I then slipped in my leather shoes on one of the last patches of snow left on our commons, with Oleg fortunately catching me from behind.

"Sorry," I excused as he righted me, "just my inner Ýsa coming out."

"Of course, sir," Oleg smoothly replied, probably having no idea what I meant with the American slang I was using. "But it is easier, if less exciting, for us on the Outside if dragons don't make trips to the mainland . . . a-any more than necessary," he diplomatically qualified however, given that Rökkr, Substance and Spring were following us to the helicopter, with Tvö Höffut and Tana following behind them.

Now beside the executive helicopter dressed in Royal Norwegian Air Force markings, I found myself with mixed feelings again about departing across our self-imposed divide for that other world once more. _Ran . . ._ I thought, almost shaking my head with a tear in my eye as I looked skyward, trying to somehow gently chastise him across the heavens for dying on us and causing all this to be put into motion.

I felt a nudging against my waist however as Roana entered the helicopter ahead of me. It was Spring. He was encouraging me to go with a nudge and then a gesture of his head as I looked at him, just the way he had at the onset of the Soviet invasion of our island. He remembered.

"Fyrir þig, mun ek fara. For you, I will go," I said, warmly repeating the same words I had said at our previous parting. "Watch our family, okay?" I added.

"Já, fatir," he simply replied in our Norse.

I then stepped inside the helicopter, its turbines whining and blades spinning as Oleg took his seat after me, facing us behind the pilot, while one of our FSK soldiers shut the side door closed from the outside before stepping away. As Roana and I were now buckling ourselves into plush white seats across the compact but well-appointed cabin from Oleg, we could see a number of well-wishers from the tribe outside our windows, backing further away at the encouragement of our FSK, giving us a wide berth for take-off.

Once again, I found myself feeling edgy in a surprisingly comfortable white executive seat that should have been relaxing me. I was entering a situation, a world where there seemed to be only heaviness and pain. Even my own past seemed to teach and reinforce that to me. As I glanced out my large side window, I saw dragons and villagers surrounded by the peaceful greens, browns and whites of our island and its forested mountains framing the blue sea and sky in between them. They were where heaven seemed to be for me now. How even Ran could leave this . . . it just felt like insanity to me—deadly insanity in his now sad case.

But then I saw something that calmed and centred me. Spring, my son, continued to look at me as the wash from the helicopter was whipping and flattening the grass around him while he stood forward from the crowd on his four black paws, watching us, watching me go.

He helped me to leave Berk with a gentle smile on my face.


	41. Chapter 41

The helicopter flight to Ørland Air Base proceeded quietly for the most part, even though the helicopter itself was quite noisy. Ironically, the busiest person on board was Oleg. Almost as soon as we were airborne, the co-pilot was passing Oleg a miked headset, telling him he had a radio call.

I tried to unobtrusively follow his side of the conversation, especially as he shook his head and gestured at times while looking off to one side. But he was speaking so fast in either Bokmål or Nynorsk, that I just couldn't follow it and gave up.

For her part, Roana was just gazing out her window, seeming to desire to remain undisturbed. I then just sighed, almost slumping in my seat.

V.I.P. flights weren't always fun and glamour.

"I'm sorry," I heard next to me though, "did you want something?"

I just briefly glanced at Roana with a sad smile, not knowing what to feel.

"You're my mate," she assured, turning towards me and taking my hand. "There are no regrets—just sadness at the passing of a friend I have known . . . a friend I should have treated better at times."

"I was patient with him," I sighed, "but that was about it. Even the dragons couldn't reach him though . . . yet the elephants did."

"He did not really like being talked to, no matter what the language," my mate noted. "If we could have just sat, been with him more. He did seem to like it when I massaged and pampered . . . I'm sorry," she then apologised, stopping herself, "shouldn't go there."

"It's okay," I half-smiled, gripping her left hand tighter.

Roana let go of my hand though, but then raised the plush white armrests between us as she shifted to lean against me, glancing up before she removed her green beret, resting her bobby-pinned head against my chin.

"I'm going to need you . . . a lot," she quietly confessed.

"You have me—one hundred percent," I assured, putting an arm around her tightly, "including whatever you want to share with me, no limits, even about Ran. I just wish we had our dragons with us. They seem to make anything better . . . at least keep things in perspective."

Roana now moved her right hand around the back of my neck as she raised her head, drawing me into a powerful kiss; even though Oleg was sitting just a couple feet in front of us, still looking basically at the floor, talking intensely on his headset.

"That's for being the Berker I love," Roana breathed against my lips.

"Dibs on a shower with you," I gently said in reply.

"Yes please . . ." my mate replied, gazing into my eyes before resting herself against me once more.

The rest of the flight seemed to go much faster after that.

— — — — —

"I'm sorry, sir," Oleg apologised, finally removing his headset as we approached the air base though.

"What for?" I wondered as Roana remained close against me, but sitting up now as we were being talked with.

"Well, to begin with," he sighed, "there's a large storm over the south of Norway, coming this way, so our connecting flight with the Baroness has been delayed, possibly until tomorrow when it passes."

"Great," I smiled wryly, "I return to civilization and get hit with flight delays, right off the bat."

"That isn't an entirely bad thing, however," Oleg qualified, "as there is a great debate going on among the Baroness' staff and the Outside Guardians as to just what your cover should be on the Outside, sir, since you will be presented in public alongside His Majesty and the Baroness, even in front of the media. We've never faced this situation of creating a high-profile personage from scratch, while keeping his previous self dead. Some are even suggesting it would be better if you, sir, simply returned to New Berk while you, m'am," he continued, nodding towards Roana, "went on alone."

"That is not happening," my mate almost growled beside me. "Work the problem."

"Thanks," I said, looking towards her. "Glad you're on my side." Roana gave me a brief, playful glance in silent reply.

"I told them you likely would not like it," Oleg sighed. "Could you fake an accent, sir?"

"Canadian, 'eh?'" I replied, " . . . but that's about it."

"You'll stand out that way," Oleg regretted. "You're not giving us much to work with. The ranks of Canadian elite are small."

"Excuse me?" I had to say, still feeling Canadian to a degree.

"I mean, sir," he continued apologetically, "it will be difficult to plant a convincing back story everywhere it needs to be that will both get you next to His Majesty and the Baroness during the funeral observances, and that the media won't poke holes in. There are not a lot of peerages and titles in your old country to hide you behind, or much of anything that could, or should, tie you as a North American to the Barony."

"Then reveal me," I decided.

"Excuse me, sir?" Oleg now responded, as Roana looked at me with some surprise as well.

"As Lance Hyse again," I clarified. "Say that I was already off pursuing some biological quest among the coastal wilds of Norway when the cabin at the Drager Vertshus exploded, with me having no idea I had been pronounced dead. I had intended to be on a long sabbatical anyway. Say that I just met up with the Barony, and that with them, I had found my past. Maybe call me a long-lost heir or something, but that I have no desire to be Baron myself—no, wait," I said, changing my mind now. "Let it instead be known that I am an Ýsa, descended from the mythic line of legendary Viking chiefs. I was becoming something of a celebrity among a few of the knowledgeable locals around the inn anyway before I disappeared.

"Add that I had discovered a new paradise and life among my own people in the North, and that I am only briefly re-emerging to honour and reclaim one of the Barony and tribe's own. Get me a fake house in the country or something if the media need to see where I live, but otherwise treat it as a non-event."

"Well . . ." Oleg replied, seeming to need a moment to take it all in, "while this may admittedly be a deft stroke, sir—one that solves the problem of how to present you—we cannot reveal New Berk, or anything that leads to it."

"New Berk is the Barony," I replied. "That is the truth, and the extent as far as the Outside will know. The rest—if any Outsider gets a hold of the Journal—disappeared into myth, which is what Hiccup intended. We do have a Kafé Berk after all, and it is run by our people, in celebration of our storied past."

"Yes, sir, it is," Oleg now smiled as he picked up his headset again.

"You, my sir, should be an Outside Guardian," Roana admired next to me, "even advisor to the Baroness."

"I am chief," I said, claiming the title in what felt like an entirely new way now. "Both of legend, and in the modern-day as well. I'm sure the Baroness can accommodate me in some way on the Outside with that. Again, it's a role I know how to play—thanks to the woman who introduced me to it, and who trained me very well."

That earned me a passionate kiss indeed from my mate.

"But," she then added as our lips parted, "you sure you don't mind Doctor Lance Hyse, world renowned exobiologist, coming back to life again?"

"I'm sure the FSK and Barony can insulate me from the Outside," I sighed with some reluctance, "passing me communiqués as absolutely necessary, and maybe I can author a paper or two again if needed. But it's the one role I can play on the Outside without having to worry about slipping up. I am and always will be Ýsa among our tribe, but I can be Lance Hyse again on the Outside when needed."

"Then I am Doctor, and Major, Roana Hyse—or Husa—on the Outside with you," my mate decided, "part of the Barony as well. Make it so, Oleg," she finished without taking her eyes off me.

"Yes, m'am," Oleg acknowledged as he seemed to be waiting for a response on the radio. "But, sir," he then cautioned, covering his headset mike with a hand, "are you sure? An Ýsa chief? On the Outside as well? That may lend the Journal too much factual credence in the hands of any Outsider who manages to get one."

"Viking nobility, Oleg," I calmly replied. "It's what I am. Other Viking sagas blend fact and fiction—both detailing factual lineages, and writing heroic fiction as if it was fact. Plus it'll give me a place at the Royal table . . . a respectable one. Hiding in plain sight," I noted. "I thought that was standard Berk operating procedure—Dragon, and Outside."

"It certainly is, sir," Oleg now replied with a further admiring smile before turning away to talk on the radio once more.

"You are chief, my love," my mate warmly but sincerely appreciated beside me.

I just subtly smiled to her in reply as we resettled against one another, looking out her window together. Another moment, a couple of them actually, passed as Oleg conversed on the radio.

"Uh, sir," Oleg then soon interjected again with concern on his face, removing his headset, "they're not accepting it—the idea—from me."

I extended my hand as Oleg passed me the headset, even though I could see out the helicopter's windows that we were practically setting down on the tarmac at Ørland.

"Hello," I said into the headset's mike as I put it on. "Who am I speaking with? Over."

"Carl Jansen," came the reply, "Chief Outside Guardian, and Senior Advisor to Baroness Gerhard. Over."

"Guardian," I decisively replied, "this is Doctor Lance Hyse, Chief Ýsa of Berk . . ." The two identities were now merging, even within me.

— — — — —

I variously directed and debated with Guardian Jansen for almost fifteen minutes by radio, even once we were on the ground at Ørland. Sure enough, it began gusting and raining around us . . . all while my cousin, Brigader Hyse, stood patiently outside the helicopter, wearing a trench coat along with his uniform hat, waiting to greet me—Roana having fortunately already stepped outside to greet him, however.

" . . . This situation is probably only the first of many to come," I said into the mike, still seated but leaning forward in the helicopter. "It is a new age. I must be able to come and go between Berk and the Outside from now on in a credible and repeatable way if our tribe and ways are to survive, and I must be able to command respect on the Outside for our people, and covertly for the dragons' interests and needs as well. There is no other way. A fake cover will do nothing for us in the long term. This will. Over."

"Your logic is inescapable, Doctor," Jansen finally agreed over the radio with a sigh. "I will still have to gain the Baroness' assent to it all, as your equal, but I will help her see the logic of it. We will set it all in motion as quickly as possible. Over."

"Good," I accepted. "And I want the Berk standard displayed openly alongside the Norwegian flag at all events, and a chief's crest using the same Dragon and Rider, designed for my lapel as well . . . perhaps smaller than His Majesty's, but still visible. Over."

"Anything for your spouse? Over," Jansen added, almost in resignation now.

"My mate's wearing her uniform will reassure all of our unity with Norway. Over," I decided, hoping Roana wouldn't mind my not consulting her as I did, but basically knowing she'd agree.

"Very well . . . sir. Over," came the reply.

"You or the Baroness can reach me through either Oleg," I said, still not knowing his last name, "or through my cousin, Brigader Husa. But I must go now. It is raining, and people are waiting for me. Over."

"Chief," Jansen now said, " . . . thank you. Over."

"For what?" I wondered into the mike.

"For doing something for our people I never thought I would see," he replied. "I don't know what it is yet . . . but it is feeling like Nineteen Forty-Three again somehow—although I was a little young to be involved back then. Over."

"Thank you, Carl," I accepted. "It'll be good working with you, and see you in Oslo. Over."

"Yes, sir," he said more enthusiastically now. "Jansen out."

"Ýsa out," I signed off as well, removing the headset before I finally exited the helicopter.

"Big doings, are there, Cousin?" Gunnar warmly greeted me as our aides began holding umbrellas over both of us, which I appreciated as I had no trench coat over my fine suit.

"We're coming out, Gunnar," I replied, "in a partial way. You will be legitimate Viking nobility, along with me. The dragons and island are staying hidden though," I quietly added near his ear.

"Thank you for not coming the way you did last time," he replied as we both turned away, along with Roana and Oleg, from the helicopter. "While my senior enlisted were already cleared, we had to drug a couple of civilian staff and junior enlisted after your previous arrival. That won't be a problem anymore though, as everyone assigned to this portion of the base is now either Outside Berker or is briefed, possessing adequate security clearance. Just don't come in broad daylight though."

"We're not headed for the bunker?" I wondered, seeing we were headed for a black staff car instead.

"You and Roana are coming home to my farm," my cousin replied, "as we once discussed on your island, remember? Your connecting flight will not take off until tomorrow morning now. This will be a perfect dry run with my family of your 'coming out' that I've been overhearing, and that Roana has been briefing me on."

"Maybe dragons next time?" I smiled.

"Maybe . . ." my cousin agreed as we all stepped into the car, with Gunnar holding the door on its right side himself for my mate.

— — — — —

With Oleg, Roana and I sharing the back seat, and Gunnar's trusted aide driving us all, before long, we were entering through a powered gate with an orange triangle and a silhouetted cow on it, and then moving along a gravel driveway up a gently-rising hill amid fenced, grassy pastures, complete with horses on one side and cattle on the other.

"My wife manages the farm," my cousin said from the front passenger seat. "I just help."

"A little exposed for us to be flying into," I noted looking around and seeing only occasional small and short copses of trees surrounding the fields, "certainly for Rökkr, Substance and Spring to be out in daylight."

"The back side of the house is completely secluded," my cousin assured. "There is a generous daylight basement, and a yard that slopes away beyond that cannot be seen by anyone, along with a fairly high chain link fence surrounding the back pastures and forests. The house is well equipped, and larger than it seems. It is a minimally secure facility. I have even received superiors and visitors by helicopter here. I would offer it to you as well—it makes a good neutral meeting place, even for first contact situations."

"You've been reading up on NASA protocols, Gunnar," I smiled.

"With you as a cousin now, I felt I had to," he replied as we came to a stop in front of the low but broad farmhouse at the top of the rise.

Soon, my cousin was ushering Oleg, Roana and I through a wide wooden doorway inside the house. Its hallways and rooms were furnished and decorated in a simple, Nordic way, the walls being mostly a light cream colour. Within a moment, we were entering the large kitchen and family room, with my cousin's family soon joining around him.

"This is my wife, Jana," Gunnar then introduced, putting an arm around his auburn-haired spouse beside him before looking at his two growing children on his other side, "ten year-old Tanya, and Jorge, who just turned seven!"

"Family," he then continued in English, presumably as a courtesy towards me, "this is our cousin, Doctor Lance Hyse, even though he should pronounce it 'Husa', along with his wife, Major Roana, who is also a veterinarian, and their staff assistant, Oleg—I'm sorry, your last name?"

"It's Hansen, Brigader," our Guardian replied.

"Around here, we're all off duty, Oleg," our host assured. "No ranks, titles, or honorifics, please."

"Just the way I run our household," Roana smiled, taking off her beret and jacket at last.

Being inside a Twentieth Century house again, with all the modern surfaces and conveniences . . . it just felt so weird to me however.

"You have a place to freshen up?" my mate followed up.

"Your rooms, even for Oleg, are right downstairs," Gunnar replied, gesturing down a broad, curving stairway off the kitchen and living space.

"You're off duty now, Oleg," Roana added. "And you, sir," she said addressing me, "could use a shower."

"And shaves," I added, "for both of us."

"I have spare razors," Jana replied, walking off to get them.

"You have a butler?" young Jorge now asked me directly, his English being very good. "You must be very important."

"He's not a butler, he's our Guardian," I replied to Oleg's seeming discomfort though. "A modern-day, real Viking Guardian."

"Wow . . ." the boy said.

"But you're a Viking, too, you know," I then said to him, kneeling down a little, "as we're cousins. You're part of the Berk Barony and Nation. I'm its chief, on my way to Oslo on important business for the tribe."

"If you are a Viking chief, why do you speak English?" the boy then wondered.

"Because I come from Canada," I said. "Our great grandfather, well, great-great, in your case, went to Canada from here, but then your great grandfather decided to come back. But Great-Great Grandfather Asger didn't tell your great grandfather he was Viking."

"Why?" the boy invariably asked.

I then decided to take a risk. "Because," I said, "he came from a mythic land where Vikings and even dragons are still said to exist."

"I'm not little anymore," Jorge almost groaned. "You don't need to tell me stories." While Gunnar was smiling, both Roana and Oleg seemed somewhat ill at ease about this.

"Suit yourself," I smiled. "Asger knew everyone else wouldn't believe him anyway, which is why he didn't say anything in Canada."

"Are dragons real?" the boy then asked.

"What do you think?" I posed.

"Are you coming for a shower, Storyteller Chief?" I now heard Roana ask behind me, Jana having evidently passed her the men's and ladies' razors we'd requested.

The boy looked at me sceptically but sincerely. "I do not know," he finally replied.

"Let's talk about it over dinner," I suggested with a wink, turning to join Roana and Oleg as they began descending the stairs.

"There are secure phones, even a conference room and office at your disposal down there," Gunnar added from the top of the curving stairs, as the three of us proceeded through a set of double doors at the bottom before Oleg shut them behind us.

"Sir," our aide then said, turning to me, "I would advise caution amid your revelations."

"Jorge is Outside Berker," I quietly replied even though the doors were closed. "We will possibly, even likely, be landing dragons here sometime. How would you suggest I proceed, even test my revealed identity? How are Outside Berker children introduced to all this?"

"Carefully, sir," our Guardian replied. "And children are introduced to this from the cradle, over years, through nursery stories and the Journal. They talk about it among just their own in schools, and are cautioned over and over not to discuss it with Outsiders. As I believe I mentioned to you last time, modern-day Berk and the existence of real dragons isn't even revealed to them until they are sixteen. That has to be part of these children's orientation as well, if you wish to pursue this."

"Their father has a top security clearance," I responded. "Keeping secrets should be a given in this family, not a concern."

"You have a responsibility, sir, to all of us—including the dragons," Oleg reminded me.

"This nation was not recognized by Norway, or anyone else," I said, "until we took some risks. I know about keeping secrets, and about first contacts. If it hadn't been for me, the Outside bureaucracy would be having me appear in the Royal Court as some foppish, long-lost heir to an obscure duchy. I am carefully phrasing things—seeing what the boy, and girl, even wife, will accept. I know the stakes, and my responsibilities."

"Lance," Roana interceded, gently laying a hand on my arm, "we're just being careful."

Something just started breaking open within me however. "It's been basically a thousand years of this . . . hiding," I said as I looked down, almost feeling and speaking as my Ýsa ancestors now. "I've been part of it for less than a year, but I am seeing that it is time for us to begin re-emerging . . . slowly, carefully . . . but re-emerging, as Hiccup and so many have dreamed of. Not today, not tomorrow—but to start a process, to be proud, even celebrate who we are, that we have endured.

"Admitting who I am, publicly, as both Hyse and Ýsa . . . it's feeling right here. I just want the rest of us to feel as good about who we are as I now do about who I am," I decided. "The dragons and island remain hidden—but the People and Nation of Berk are coming out, as the Sami have. That is the opportunity Ran is now giving us, what will give his sacrifice additional meaning. We are achieving a dream," I said to Roana and Oleg. "We are going right to the Royal Palace in Oslo, as Berk, publicly, at their invitation. I will talk to the Baroness, to the entire Outside Guardianship if necessary. But this is where it starts . . . where Hiccup's dream begins to come true."

Roana just moved to embrace me as I put my arms around her.

"With all due respect, m'am and sir, I believe I will be going back on duty," Oleg added beside us with a smile. "I have some calls to be making."

— — — — —

"Ohhhh . . . I had forgotten how good showers feel," Roana was soon sighing under the streams of warm water.

"Especially with a mate, right?" I added as we relaxed together in one another's embrace. "Mind if I have a turn under the water?"

"I suppose you could," she smiled as we turned around in the small, curtained tub and shower enclosure. "Lance . . ." she added though.

"What?" I asked as the steamy streams now fell about my head and shoulders.

"So what is this plan of yours for Berk 'coming out'?" she posed, nestling closer against me.

"You don't trust me to make it up as I go?" I wondered.

"It's just that you haven't been doing this—working with the Outside while maintaining our secrecy—all that long," Roana hedged, "and aside from me, and the Baroness, few others could tell you 'no'. You must be careful with what you say and reveal, and how you say it. You cannot screw up, slip up, or get carried away, understood?" she now said, looking at me.

"I have kept secrets greater than this," I said with equal seriousness. "You know one of them. I know how to conduct myself, and what can and cannot be said."

"Look," she sighed in my arms, "just don't surprise the Baroness . . . or me. I will interrupt, even stop you, if I have to."

"Understood," I accepted.

"I love you, okay?" she now sighed, burying her head against my neck.

"I love you, too," I softened. "Still want those legs shaved?"

"You wouldn't mind?" I could feel her smile.

"You've shaved me enough times," I replied.

"This'll take longer," she warmly cautioned.

"Well, I'd better get going," I said, grabbing the contoured ladies' razor off the shower's side sill.

Roana was right . . . it did take longer.

Soon though, there was a knocking beyond the bathroom at our bedroom door.

"Yes?" Roana said loudly as I continued my work around her legs while she washed the rest of herself.

"Just me, m'am," Oleg replied, "bringing coffee, and letting you know dinner is in twenty minutes."

"You are turning into our butler, Oleg," my mate replied. "You never used to bring me coffee."

"Actually, I did," he corrected, as we could hear him setting a tray down outside our bathroom door. "I just shared it with you."

"You did not hear that, Lance," she quietly directed above me.

"Not a problem," I smoothly assured, drawing the blades with equal smoothness above one of her knees. "Still enough time to do me?"

"That's good enough for now on my legs. Leave the rest for later," she quietly said, turning under the shower to rinse the rest of the soapy lather off while I rose to my feet again. "That'll be all, Oleg," she then said more loudly, "including the history lessons."

"As you wish . . . m'am," I could hear him smiling as he left.

A moment later, Roana and I were emerging from the bathroom in towels.

"Sure you want to do this in bed?" I wondered.

"The tub here is too small, and I can keep the sheets clean . . . while shaving you," she assured.

"You know how beautiful you are pregnant, even in a towel?" I couldn't help admiring.

"I was wondering when you were going to say that," she sighed, settling onto the bed. "Come here," she invited.

"Can't take a compliment?" I wondered as I reclined in turn against her. "Even Hiccup admired Astrid as a 'harp seal' during her pregnancies."

"Right when she was due, according to what he wrote in the Journal," Roana noted as she lathered up each side of my jaw lightly with a wet bar of soap, as we had long done now back in the village.

"You're beautiful," I maintained.

"Shhhh!" she said, snapping my mouth shut with a hand as she began to run the men's razor in short strokes along my left lower jaw. I just closed my eyes now in bliss and let her massage my face with both her soapy fingers and that razor. Sometimes I dozed off as she did this, it was so soothing . . . even with a sharpened Viking dagger blade back home.

"Lance," I heard though, " . . . thank you."

I just silently rubbed her bare legs on either side of me in warm acknowledgement.

— — — — —

Dinner went well enough with Gunnar and his family. I left my shirt collar open and the jacket and tie downstairs, while Roana also left her uniform tie and jacket downstairs, with her golden hair running down her back, drying.

Oleg was still fully dressed in his grey suit, however, causing young Jorge to maintain, "he is your butler."

"If he wants to play the part," I smiled at Oleg while answering Jorge, "he can."

The conversation soon turned to a further introduction of the Berk nation to this family, with Gunnar even helpfully noting to his children, " . . . they even have an ancient saga, all their own, isn't that right, Cousin?"

"It's in Old Norse," I replied, "but I have thought of translating it to other languages. Unfortunately English is the only other language I know right now other than the ancient tongue. I am still learning your Norwegian."

I could tell both Roana and Oleg were holding their breaths that I wasn't going to say it was because I lived on an island where only Old Norse was spoken.

But Jorge put me on the spot anyway, as children can do so well. "So what do you know about dragons?" he asked me across the table. "You said you would be talking about it over dinner."

"We only know what's written in the Journal," Roana then interjected, looking at Jorge but also clearly telling me what the limits of my answer would be.

"Well, in those legends, and even in our Kafé Berk giftshop in Wønur," I replied, as much to Roana and Oleg as to Jorge, "there are—were," I corrected in compromise to my two 'minders', "a number of kinds of dragon—everything from large, round Gronkles the size of a Hippopotamus, to dog-sized Terrors, large Nightmares who can make their entire bodies flame, and black Night Furies, the fastest and most stealthy of all dragons."

I glanced at Oleg and Roana. They were at least looking less than totally frozen with panic at what I was saying. So far, so good.

"Do they still exist?" Jorge pressed.

I carefully considered my answer as I took another bite of Lapskaus, a traditional Norwegian stew of beef, lamb and vegetables, produced right from the Hyse family farm we were told. Roana next to me switched her fork from her right hand to her left so that right hand could surreptitiously reach under the table and squeeze my upper leg in caution.

"Have you studied ancient mythologies in school?" I finally asked Jorge in turn.

"Some," he replied. "Mostly Viking and ancient Greek so far."

"Well," I continued, "from what you've studied, do you think the creatures the people faced in those legends were real to them? Or do you think they made them up?"

"How can I know?" Jorge mildly protested.

"Sometimes, belief in something has to be a choice, even in science," I said. "My predecessors in biology and other sciences had to believe there were things that were worth looking for through a microscope before they could have any hope of finding them. Same with new animal species and even tribal populations we are still discovering in the jungles of the Amazon and elsewhere. Everything in this world is not always as some say it is. Some things we have to discover for ourselves. So for me to give you a definitive answer on dragons, even if I could," I noted, glancing at my mate at my side and Oleg across from me, "would be to deny you the chance to decide, and even discover for yourself. So the best I can tell you right now is to continue learning Old Norse, read our people's Journal, and decide what's true for you. It is just the way I have worked as a scientist at times. I just have to document and prove what I decide to others if I want them to believe what I say though."

"But we don't have such a journal here," Jorge complained.

"Consider it to be a late birthday present then, from a long-lost cousin," I replied. "Oleg," I then said without taking my eyes off my young relative, "please see this young man gets one."

The dinner conversation was deftly navigated, an inquisitive boy was answered, even if it required waiting for a present and then some more studying on his part, and neither of my 'minders' had sufficient grounds to object.

I was beginning to get good at this.

— — — — —

After dinner, Oleg excused himself downstairs again. Gunnar invited me into the living room, while Roana volunteered to tell the children stories as she put them to bed with Jana. I got the feeling that my mate didn't trust me to tell them stories.

"You have any vacations there?" my cousin wondered to me as we sat on his couch.

"A broken arm and leg during the winter, along with regular howling snowstorms that have kept us housebound," I replied.

"You owe me for downing that helicopter I sent you last fall," he quipped.

I shrugged.

"You really going to bring Berk out of hiding?" my cousin then asked.

"I am," I answered. "Haven't figured it all out yet, while keeping the dragons and island hidden, but I am."

"Your wife and aide seem a little less than agreeable to it though," he perceptively cautioned. "A lot of people have spent a lot of time keeping all of that hidden."

"We came out to whom we needed to during World War Two," I said. "I'm just taking it the next step, still using the Barony as a cover."

"Be careful," my cousin advised.

— — — — —

"My cousin seems to be agreeing with you," I said practically the second Roana turned out the lamp above our bed and proceeded to curl her unclothed self up against me.

"I'm not disagreeing with you, my love," my mate gently assured, laying her head on my shoulder.

"If I am going to be me out there," I said, looking up at the darkened ceiling above us, "the old me again, standing alongside the Baroness and the King, I gotta have something around me . . . at least a reason why I'm showing up at all there. And that reason is Berk, the Barony part of it, and my past. It's time, and it all just makes sense to me."

"And to me, too," she assured, turning my head with a hand and drawing me into a kiss.

"I'm scared of standing alone in this," I confessed. "Of having everything blow up, even everyone finding a reason to kick me off the island."

I now felt Roana hold me tightly. "Not gonna happen," she whispered.

That night, I fell asleep nestled against her shoulder.

— — — — —

The next morning, we were back at the air base, all of us in full suits or uniforms, as Oleg, Roana and I stepped through the cramped doorway of a small, white and blue-striped French Dassault Falcon executive jet.

"Explain your idea to me," the Baroness greeted me with uncharacteristic coolness inside, as I noticed what must have been Chief Guardian Carl Jensen seated across the narrow aisle from her, " . . . from the beginning."

This now felt worse than having to tell the President in Washington that Lazarus worked, but that I knew it must be destroyed.

This was battle, I realized, as I buckled myself into a tan leather seat facing the Baroness, while Roana buckled her uniformed self into the seat across the aisle from me and Oleg took a seat behind us. This time though, I was facing it without my Night Fury's protection and wise guidance.

"Baroness . . ." I began, taking a deep breath, thinking I might just be kicked off the island if I got this wrong—or maybe even out of the aircraft.

— — — — —

By the end of the fairly short flight, we were approaching Oslo.

"You are reclaiming your role in full . . . even putting me back in Gerhard's place as your Outside Guardian, even enabler," the Baroness now subtly smiled.

I had won.

"Gerhard was a brother to Hiccup," I was now able to authoritatively say, thankful for having read, even translated the complete Journal with Roana over the winter. "He never looked at Gerhard as anything less than an equal. That's what I want you and I to be, going forward . . . Sis."

"I won't be able to seduce you now, Brother," the silver-haired lady smiled across from me. "Not that I was ever going to, Roana," she quickly assured my mate.

Roana silently turned her head towards me, reaching across the aisle for my hand, gripping it firmly with a moving smile of pride as our palms touched. I glanced out the window, scarcely able to believe all I had now accomplished. I was now the human head of our state, leader of the Berk Nation.

Before long, we had landed and had come to a stop on the airport tarmac, transitioning to a black limousine amid a detachment of the Hans Majestet Kongens Garde or His Majesty the King's Guard saluting us. The blue standard of Berk, featuring the Dragon and Rider at peace but on guard, was already fluttering, right alongside the bright red, white and blue flag of Norway held by the honour guard . . . openly, in public.

Even Roana couldn't help wiping away a tear at the sight.

"The first function will be a fairly informal welcome reception at the palace," we were then soon being briefed en route by Oleg, who by my actions in flight had essentially been handed a promotion as the Chief's Guardian, making him basically co-equal to Jansen next to him now. "We will have a full white tie and tails for you, sir, by dinner this evening, and a full dress uniform for you as well, m'am," he continued, looking at Roana, "unless you would prefer an evening gown."

"Pregnant, I'll take the uniform," she sighed.

"You'd look good in the gown," I gently said to her though. "I'd be proud, very proud."

"You want me to?" Roana asked.

"Yeah, I do," I decided.

My mate just leaned against me inside the limousine in quiet gratitude.

Before we knew it, we were arriving at the Slottet or Royal Palace—a large, cream-coloured, three-storey building situated at the top of a low hill in Oslo. A throng of press with flashing cameras greeted us as we were driven through a set of gates off to one side, upon the just-released news that Doctor Lance Hyse was not only alive, but had turned out to be the long-lost descendant of Viking chieftains that an excited Berk aboriginal nation of Vikings along coastal lands to the north had now embraced alongside their Baroness.

It was news that even a year ago, I wouldn't have believed.

Having pulled up to a private palace entrance, we were then let out of the limousine and soon were being escorted along several ornate hallways into a formal room, amid a small crowd already gathered there.

"Hans Eksellense, Lance Ýsa, Sjef for Berk, og Major Roana Ýsa!" we were loudly introduced as upon entering the room.

"Oh well, yet another name tag for the uniform," Roana quipped in my ear.

I just smiled as we approached His Majesty directly, with me bowing and Roana curtseying in her day uniform.

"A pleasure to see you again," the pinstriped monarch said, offering his hand to me.

"Likewise, Your Majesty," I replied.

"Nice to see you as well, Baroness, and Major," he then greeted Jarldis and Roana in turn.

"Takk, Majestet," they each acknowledged.

"My condolences on your people's loss of Doctor Jorgenson," he then said to all of us.

"Thank you, most kind," I accepted on behalf of my people now, still amazed I was now doing so.

"I hope Substance is well," he quietly added to me.

"She is recovered, sir," I said, "except for her blindness. She extends her regrets, unable to be here for this occasion."

"Quite understandable," he accepted. "I nonetheless hope to pay my respects to her in time, perhaps this summer?"

"Allow us to possibly discuss that later, if we may, Majesty," I said, having an idea I wanted to discuss with him.

"I look forward to it," he agreed. "But now that you are here," he continued, "I have to give the first of my brief speeches. Please, remain beside me."

The monarch then nodded to a page, who pounded a staff on the room's wooden floor three times to get everyone's quiet and attention.

As the king then spoke in Bokmål, I allowed myself to imagine dragons one day being welcomed into this ballroom, and what a supreme irony, and triumph, that would be.

" . . . And if our esteemed guests from the Berk Nation have anything they would like to add," I then heard the king say in English.

I just looked at the Baroness, trying to conceal a shocked expression, as I had no remarks prepared, or had even been warned I would be called upon to make any. The Baroness just nodded once to me however in seeming acceptance, and then stepped forward beside the king to calmly deliver some formal remarks in Bokmål.

As she spoke, I decided I would have to watch her more carefully . . . and be more prepared myself.

— — — — —

"I'm sorry, sir," Oleg was apologising later, as we proceeded along a palace hallway after parting from His Majesty at the end of the reception until dinner, "but things are getting busy around you. You will first be meeting with military attachés from the American and Canadian embassies, in a room the palace is making available to us, and then proceed into a press conference after they have briefed you, as there are speculations about you we need to get under control."

"A hornet's nest, Oleg?" I surmised as we walked.

"'Fraid so, sir," he confirmed.

We then entered a room where smartly dressed American and Canadian military officers were standing either side of a TV set that had a small camera on top. Without saying a word, the American officer then switched the TV on.

"Colonel, what are you doing, revealing yourself as being alive without notifying us?" a well-dressed older man now said via the videolink. It was the current president's National Security Advisor from Washington.

"My work with NASA has concluded, sir," I responded, "and I am now acting in a capacity that should have no direct bearing on American interests."

"Your existence, and knowledge of it, is an American interest, Colonel," the Advisor pointedly replied. "One that we were under the understanding was to remain classified."

"The Soviets already know of my continued existence, sir," I countered. "But I am now, and will always be, surrounded by extensive security—essentially that 'bubble' your predecessor wanted me in. Even the Soviets' lead operative I co-led the capture of though admitted theirs was a fool's errand. They know Lazarus is a failure, and I don't believe they will try for me again. Besides, we have a Norwegian FSK platoon now protecting me on the island, as well as dragons, which are frankly equally as effective in my opinion."

"What are your intentions in being on the Outside again?" he then asked.

"It's something of a long story, sir," I now more candidly replied, "but essentially my tribe has lost one of our own on an overseas medical mission, and we were invited by the Palace here in Oslo to participate in a public memorial and honours they wish to bestow on him. Consulting with others, I came to feel it was time for our tribe to further carefully emerge from a thousand years of concealment, especially as our dragons will require a fair amount of scientific and medical input and help from the Outside if they are to survive, while still remaining classified for the foreseeable future. Only the Barony is being further revealed as our tribe, and no one could devise an acceptable cover for me anyway if I was to participate here at all as part of the Berk delegation. I was aware of the risks, even the potential controversies of surfacing . . . but felt it was necessary, and the only viable option."

"You wanted further access to your past work and resources?" he asked.

"In part, yes," I confirmed. "I need to be able to come and go, even perhaps confer and circulate with scientific colleagues at times going forward if the dragons are to survive—confidentially of course. That would be easier if I didn't have to live a new identity every time I did so, or risk being discovered and potentially further expose things neither of us would desire."

"Very well, Colonel," the Advisor now accepted to my relief. "But we expect to be kept better notified from here on, in advance . . . and no vacations, seminars or grandstanding on the Outside."

"I am head—well, co-leader—of a sovereign people, that even the United States has recognized," I answered.

"That treaty remains classified," he almost barked. "But we publicly recognize the rest of Berk because Norway does."

"Agreed, sir," I responded.

"Alright," he sighed, "you can function as a tribal leader . . . and as the publicly recognized scientific authority you already have been."

"Thank you, sir," I accepted.

"Just stay out of our hair," the Advisor asked, "and don't blow it with the press coming up."

"I will, and won't, sir," I deftly replied.

"Sometimes I wish you, the field of exobiology, and that dead end you discovered never existed," he sighed.

"I prefer the simple life as well, sir—and intend to live it as much as possible where I now am," I gently smiled, while thinking, _that's why I killed Lazarus._

"Patterson out," he finished as the screen then went black.

Roana then came up beside me, taking and rubbing my right arm through my suit jacket. I gently took one of her hands with my left, knowing she would never leave me alone amidst all this.

"On to the press now," I sighed, feeling that I had made another conquest here . . . albeit at some cost though.

"Still sure all this is a good idea?" she quipped.

I just gently kissed her before we turned to leave the room as the two military attachés now saluted.

"Thank you, gentlemen," I acknowledged as Roana and I paused and turned to return their salutes while neither of them had ever spoken a word to us.

— — — — —

A whirlwind press conference followed, where I basically had to explain over and over again behind a podium amid flashing cameras and bright TV lights that I was simply exploring coastal biologies and history on sabbatical, before I encountered a member of the Barony who introduced me to it all, and soon became my second wife—the truth is just easier to lie about. I had simply been living out of touch in the north as a rediscovered leader among my tribe ever since, before being summoned to Oslo as part of a delegation to honour one of our heroically fallen. End of story.

Even the Baroness was now quietly smiling as we left that throng of reporters behind.

Finally, Roana and I were shown upstairs to the palace suite we would be occupying during our stay.

"You, my sir, need a pick-me-up and stress-reliever before dinner," my mate now said, approaching me as soon as the doors were closed behind us, unbuttoning her uniform blouse before even shedding her military jacket.

I just embraced her so fast and kissed her so hard, it was a miracle we ever managed to get undressed.

Before long, we were relaxing together in the plushest king-sized bed I had ever experienced.

"Still think I'm gonna look good in an evening gown?" Roana asked, relaxing unclothed against me.

"Gods," I honestly admired, turning to kiss her again, "you are gonna look so beautiful, so very beautiful."

"Well," she breathed with a smile, "it hasn't been delivered yet, so maybe I'll just have to go as Lady Godiva."

"Even better," I smiled as we shared another kiss, before sure enough, there was a knocking at the massive double-doors of polished wood that guarded our privacy.

"There it is. Bath robes on," she then sighed, rolling out of our bed.

"I couldn't be doing this without you," I had to say as we each now donned sumptuous palace robes.

"Feeling's mutual," she winked, before walking to answer the door.

How I wanted to be sharing this with our dragons though.

— — — — —

That chance, or at least a prospect of it, would be coming up sooner than I thought however.

There wasn't much conversation at the state dinner given in our honour among largely the same circle of guests again, but then I found myself far too distracted by what Roana was wearing anyway to want to make much conversation, especially in that stunning dark blue evening dress that bared her shoulders and framed the rest of her, even her somewhat pregnant abdomen, just right.

"You haven't looked this good to me since our first mating night," I whispered to her as we had earlier entered the state dining room, even as our names were once again being loudly announced in Bokmål.

Roana patted my left arm as she smiled, clearly appreciating the compliment this time.

I suppose it was appropriate though that the dinner was good but quiet, the formal remarks and toasts minimal . . . because of what we all adjourned to afterwards.

It was the first time Roana and I had seen Ran's coffin. It was set in the palace chapel, fortunately closed, with a Berk standard draped over its oak surfaces. Norwegian and Berk flags stood behind it, and both Norwegian Hans Majestet Kongens Garde and Berk Outside Guardians formed an honour guard at the four corners of the bier the coffin rested on. Any pews in this chapel may have possessed had been cleared though, with just simple chairs of dark leather and wood arrayed on three sides facing the dais and altar, allowing for a large, long space in front of the coffin, with the coffin itself being about the only object illuminated by spotlight in the otherwise dim and candlelit space.

Their Majesties, the king and queen, stood before the coffin ahead of Roana, myself, and the Baroness for a moment, bowing their heads, before moving to the right. Then, as Roana and I stepped forward, she slowly dropped to her knees in her evening gown, unable to contain herself. I quietly descended to my knees as well, taking her into my arms from the side and holding her as she now wept, silently . . . her tears falling upon the stone floor in front of us.

A moment later though, she recovered herself, glancing at me with tearful but grateful eyes as I helped her to her feet again, before I guided her to the right as well. The Baroness followed us, also descending to her knees, likely to support Roana, as she, too bowed her head, before rising and following us to the side, as we all took our seats on the simple wooden chairs beside the king and queen.

Roana continued to hold my offered right hand tightly as I kept my left arm around her shoulders. She sniffled occasionally as a few more tears fell, while other mourners paid their respects to the spot lit coffin in front of us. The near silence was deafening though, until a small choir from a local church began singing a Mozart motet a cappella from the rear of the chapel, which was so achingly moving and beautiful, it only served to bring out more tears from both Roana and I.

I had never been to a formal wake before, but this one was seemingly intended to wring every last tear from a person from its sheer starkness. As it ended and we formed a receiving line with their Majesties at the chapel entrance to thank the other mourners as they left, I was ready to escort Roana quietly to bed, and just continue to hold her close after this.

But it turned out we had one more duty of the evening.

After we bade goodnight to the last mourner, the king invited me away to an informal discussion with him alone, while his queen invited both Roana and the Baroness away with her.

"I'll be okay," my mate whispered to me in assurance, drying her tears. I kissed her cheek gently, giving her a somewhat worried look as we then parted, but she managed to give me a subtle nod and smile, which broadened when I gave her a clenched left fist across my heart that Hiccup and Astrid had once given one another—a sign Roana gladly returned as well clenching her right fist across her own heart, signifying our shared strength.

Then, entering his grand but private study, the king invited me to allow one of his footmen to relieve me of my formal jacket, as a valet took his jacket as well, leaving us both in our crisp white shirts, vests and bow ties.

"Schnapps?" the king offered, once the doors were then closed behind us. "I'm told you like it."

"Your research or briefing is most thorough, Majesty," I accepted. "Thank you, yes."

"It is a hospitality we pride ourselves on. Please, take a seat," he invited, gesturing to a nearby sofa. "So tell me, Lance," he then continued, pouring my drink at a small liquor cabinet against a window, before pouring his own, "what is it like, living with dragons?"

"At first, sir," I sighed, "it was paradise . . . an unbelievable paradise. Creatures, beings, of profound insight as well as fearsome strength and fire . . . a people seemingly untouched by the passage of almost a thousand years. But then—I attracted war upon it all . . . upon us."

"Ah yes," he concurred.

"How much do you know, sir?" I asked.

"As much as NATO basically does," he said, looking out the window before he turned, bringing our drinks, "although I am aware there is more to it all. I am thankful that Lazarus was a failure though, as Norway would have been among the first recipients of any Soviet nuclear attack, with even nuclear artillery shells lobbed across our northern border, as well as tactical missiles fired across the Gulf of Bothnia."

"Do you view me as an Oppenheimer, even a Mengele?" I dared to ask as he now passed me my glass.

"That you would put yourself in such terms, most certainly not," he replied, sitting himself in a plush armchair.

"It was the greatest mistake of my life," I said, taking my first sip. "Sir," I then asked, "can I trust you?"

"This room is secure," he assured, "as am I."

I now took another risk. "Only the previous president and a few others, including my aide and both my past wife and present mate, know this," I then said, "due largely to an outburst from my past wife when we inadvertently encountered her one day on the Outside last fall. The current president and his staff though, even the Joint Chiefs, do not know."

"Go on," the king encouraged, giving me his full attention.

"Lazarus, sir, was a success," I said, sitting forward on the couch, holding my glass and looking across the ornate room. "I made it that way. Then, I convinced the previous president to allow me to make it look like a failure . . . largely sacrificing my career in the process."

The king rose from his chair, extending his right hand towards me. "Thank you, sir," he said, tears welling up in his eyes. "Thank you," he repeated, even taking me into an embrace.

"You have no idea," I now wept as well, "how much I regret that whole thing."

"It is you," he said, as we backed away slightly, looking at each other, "you who deserves any knighthood, any honour and gratitude we can give."

"I cannot ever accept such a thing," I sniffed. "I'm sure you can appreciate that."

"I can," he replied. "But you have a lifelong friend, even ally, in the Norwegian people, and now in me."

"Do you know what a miracle, even irony, that is for me and my people, sir?" I said. "Olaf, both the First and the Second, tried to conquer us, relying on Christian armies and allies, even searching for us for years after we disappeared."

"I know," he said to my surprise as we remained standing. "After Substance refused my offer of the Order of Saint Olaf, saying her paw would be added on the swords that killed her kind . . . I had to know why. I asked the Baroness, and she provided me with a copy of the Journal. I have long known Old Norse, and I have read the Journal, in full. I envy you, Lance . . . the lives you and your people lead with your dragons—despite, even because of the tragedies you have suffered. I would do anything in my power to set right any of it that I could."

"Sir," I now said, finally giving voice to an idea that had been growing within me for some time, " . . . before the war, when I was just a Dragon Knight—even before that, actually—my mate and I were offered a grand wedding feast at our ancestral island, at Old Berk. It was to be a celebration for all my people . . . of the return of an Ýsa, even the survival of my tribe and nation for a thousand years.

"But it hasn't happened," I continued. "Things just combined to interfere and postpone it. Since then, since last summer, Substance has suffered and triumphed through what she has . . . so much has been lost, and gained. There is a lot for us to both commemorate, and to celebrate. But frankly, sir, there is still the matter of that wedding feast. Among everything else, all those other reasons that I want to honour, too," I sighed, looking down, "I would like to make an honest woman of my mate, before my people . . . and before she gives birth to our child."

The king now just smiled broadly.


	42. Chapter 42

It was after midnight, even 1 AM, when a footman escorted me along several now dimmed palace halls back to the suite I was sharing with Roana.

"Vould you like any assistance vith your suit, sir?" the attendant asked in his accented English, stopping and turning toward me in front of the double doors of my suite.

"No," I almost whispered, either sure Roana was asleep by now, or hoping she would be. "Thank you . . . Takk," I whispered even more quietly in two languages, trying to be diplomatic.

The footman smiled, opening the thankfully well-oiled door for me, and gesturing inside as I gave him a nod before he closed the door with equal, efficient quiet.

Everything was silence, and darkness, in the suite—which wasn't exactly helpful. I could basically make out the king-sized bed, and knew my mate would likely be sleeping on the far side. But that was about it. Our room faced the Dronnigparken, the private royal gardens behind the palace instead of the city, so there was little light filtering through the large windows. I decided to put most any thought of at least parts of the discussion I had with the king that evening out of my mind for the moment as I tried to find even a chair to lay my suit clothes on—but I just kept finding wall. Finally, there was what felt like a dressing table, but it was so narrow that my dress jacket just fell off as soon as I laid it down. I then just gave up and stripped where I was, deciding to pass on the toothbrushing as I then groped my way to the edge of the king-sized bed.

"I thought I had trained you better than that," I heard. "Stealthy, you're not."

"Failing grade?" I wondered, pausing now even though I'd been caught.

"More like C-minus," Roana decided. "You're getting more field training this summer to stay sharp. You were hours with the king though. How'd it go?"

"You're sounding better," I noted, deflecting her question for the moment, unable to see more than a faint silhouette of her. "You okay?"

"Get the rest of the way into bed," she quietly said, shifting, "and let me tell you, with my whole self."

I did as I was told—well, invited really—to be greeted just as my mate promised, with her whole self gently wrapping around me from the left.

"Now tell," she softly but firmly instructed, "how did it go with the king?"

"How'd it go with the queen?" I almost teased, holding her now under the covers as well.

"Okay," Roana sighed, shifting herself a bit more against me, "let's just take care of that by saying that the queen is a wonderful person, but she is neither a warrior, or an executive, like the Baroness and I are . . . uh, make that the other way 'round—executive or warrior. You know how little most anything household and I have in common—thank the gods we've had Tana basically from the start. So, there wasn't much I could contribute to the conversation this evening. The Baroness of course can talk about anything at length, however. Now, your turn."

I had to kiss Roana's forehead, chuckling to myself as I rocked her under the thick covers.

"That amusing, huh?" I heard against my shoulder.

"You are the best when you're bored or mildly frustrated, you know that?" I smiled.

"Thanks," she accepted, "but it still doesn't tell me what I want to know."

"Remember fairly late in the Journal," I now replied, "after they left Dragon Island for the last time, when Hiccup wanted to turn around on Toothless and just go talk with the king?"

"Yeah?" she said, quizzically.

"Well, a talk he could only dream of having, happened tonight," I said.

I could tell Roana was looking up at me now as our heads lay on those plush pillows in the darkness.

"We," I said, "are friends, personal friends, with the king."

My mate just kept looking at me, not saying a thing.

"And that," I continued, "opens all sorts of doors, for us, and for our people . . . even the dragons. Plus the king was very glad, even admiring, that I came here, and came out, as myself."

"Lance . . ." she ruefully said, "I should have stuck to you like glue, dammit! I should have shamed myself with a crying routine—anything to have remained with you and gotten into that room with the king instead. You had sooo much the better conversation!" Roana was all but reaching over her head and seeming ready to pound me with a pillow.

"Whoa there, lady, whoa!" I smiled, while almost restraining her against me, lest she do just that. She softly pounded a fist against my chest anyway.

"I get talk of Scandinavian pastry recipes, while you make history for our tribe!" she growled against me. "No fair! Ngggh!"

"Roana," I said, "mellow. There will be more, and I was doing it for both of us."

"Next time, you're talking pastry with the queen!" she maintained.

"Roana . . ." I gently repeated, rocking her once more as her left hand alternately gripped and gently pounded my upper chest in frustration.

"I'm so proud of you," she now sniffed, "that it bites! It really does."

"Roana . . ." I said more softly now, holding her tightly. "I'm sorry."

"Lance . . ." she gently wept. "Dammit . . . you did good. Wish I'd seen it . . . so much."

I now stopped rocking her, and just held her.

"What could I give you?" I asked. "To make up for it?"

"You," she whispered intensely, " . . . hard."

— — — — —

"Morning, sir, m'am," I heard as a tray was set down on the nightstand next to me. "Coffee. An en suite breakfast will be along momentarily."

"Oleg," I yawned as Roana still seemed asleep against me, "you're spoiling us. You'll forget how to be a Guardian if you keep this up."

"Mine is the easy job, sir," he replied. "Besides, you two deserve breakfast in bed for all you're doing. The reports from back home are incredible. Berk standards, large and small, are flying all over the place across the Barony, right alongside Norwegian flags. The Kafé Berk can't keep them in stock. They are ready to throw you two a parade up in Wønur the next time you're there now. But I have the Chief's badge and strap of office you requested."

"Finally, I'll be able to look like an elder alongside Substance and Rökkr," I said, "instead of the roughest Viking barbarian in town with that bearskin cloak."

"Don't ditch or diss the bearskin," Roana defended, still nestled against me. "It's tradition."

"It's also moth-eaten and mouldy," I said.

"You also need to review the draft text," Oleg now added, tapping a small sheaf of papers on one side of the tray.

"Draft text of what?" I wondered, unable to sit up because Roana was still anchoring me from my left side.

"You are delivering the eulogy, sir," Oleg replied. "You and Roana knew Ran better than anyone else apparently, and he does not have any relatives who feel able to speak for him."

"His line is dying out?" I asked.

"Oh no, sir," he answered. "They're just Outside now, around the Barony and beyond. Many have come to be here today. But he has no family on the island, and kept to himself I understand."

"I'll be family to him," Roana sleepily replied next to me. "I owe him that."

"We both will," I said, rolling partway to give Roana's forehead a kiss.

— — — — —

A full breakfast in bed . . . in a royal palace, no less.

Too bad Roana and I weren't given much time to enjoy it.

"You must hurry, sir and m'am," Oleg said, popping his head through the doors yet again. "There are formalities you're expected at beforehand," he urged before re-closing the doors.

"This is worse than a wedding," I sighed . . . before wishing I hadn't said that, for more than one reason.

"If it was, we wouldn't be trying to enjoy breakfast in bed together," my mate casually replied, amid a forkful of eggs.

I glanced at her, and at the robe she now had wrapped around herself.

"We wouldn't be bothering with these—with robes—at home," I smiled, glancing down at the fine robe I was wearing as well.

"Nope," she smiled, finishing her mouthful. "You'd still be sleeping. Let's hit the showers, Chief, before Oleg has to remind us again."

"Can we have a vacation here after this?" I wondered as I hurriedly finished the last of my own eggs.

"Don't think so," my mate replied as she moved her breakfast tray aside—onto my legs—before turning and rising out of bed. "It's why things and people here are so nice . . . makes up for all the constant work the Royals and guests like us are expected to do."

Roana then walked around the foot of the bed to my side. "Come on," she warmly invited, moving her tray off my legs, before moving mine as well, "share a quick shower with me if you don't like the robes. I'll even give you a shave . . . may have to be standing to save time though."

— — — — —

"I want a vacation with you," I quietly maintained to my mate as Oleg and others were escorting us along a palace hallway a short time later.

Roana couldn't help trying to conceal her quiet laughter next to me in her uniform again. "This is supposed to be a sombre occasion!" she sharply whispered to me with a smile on her face.

"It's time even Ran started having fun," I quietly replied as we turned towards the palace chapel once more. "Life goes on," I added, placing my hand on the one Roana had hooked around my elbow, " . . . both here, and in Valhalla."

"Lance . . ." Roana admired, hooking her free hand around the back of my head and giving me a short but deep kiss with Ran's coffin not far away. As we ended it, I noticed His Majesty was trying to unobtrusively glance our way as we were gathered at the chapel doorway, betraying a subtle smile on his face.

My mate then paused, straightening the dark leather strap around my neck one more time that led down to a moderate-sized oblong enamel crest positioned on the chest of my suit, featuring the Berk Dragon and Rider . . . my strap and badge of office. The king was in his own somewhat ceremonial dress—civilian, not military—with his own sash and crest or two, but I think he almost envied mine . . . at least admired it.

We were here though in the palace chapel to begin the day with a posthumous investiture and bestowing of honours. Ran was being knighted, receiving a knighthood in the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit, along with a Medal of Heroism in Gold, both of which His Majesty had sought my counsel and diplomatic approval of the night before as part of our long discussion. It would likely be these same honours that Substance would receive in time—and I would ensure she would agree to them.

After saying a few words, facing Ran's coffin from in front of the dais and altar, the king himself then placed first the sheathed ceremonial sword Ran had now earned as a knight, and then his medal inside its opened black box, on the lid of the coffin, just in front of a floral wreath and on top of the draped Berk standard. Finally, in silence, standing before the foot of the coffin again as it faced the chapel altar, the king saluted Ran . . . as all of us in uniform or leadership did.

_Ran, buddy,_ I couldn't help thinking to him with a tear in my eye, _you did good._

Then, the coffin was lifted up onto the shoulders of three Hans Majestet Kongens Garde or HMKG and three Berk Outside Guardians. The Guardians were dressed in Norwegian national dress, or bunad, consisting of black breeches and grey lederhosen, a black jacket with silver buttons, and white vests underneath. They were in the ethnic style of the Nordland or 'North Land' region that surrounded our Barony, but I couldn't help thinking they were not fitting dress uniforms for our honour guard—not like those the HMKG wore anyway.

The bearers carefully turning around with their charge towards the chapel entrance, the funerary procession then began, with Roana and I falling in behind the coffin as family—or at least the closest friends Ran had—and then by the Baroness and their Majesties behind us. As we exited past the other assembled mourners though, one—a thin, auburn-haired woman slightly shorter than Roana, and dressed all in black with a black hat and veil as well—turned to join beside my mate and I. In her hands, she was tightly clutching a book, bound in primitive leather without title or writing of any kind upon it, and with somewhat uneven pages inside. I knew what it was.

"I vould like to join you, if I may," the woman quietly said with a clear Norwegian accent, as we all processed out the chapel now. "I'm sorry ve did not have much of a chance to talk last night . . . but I brought Ran, his body, home," she then whispered. "He and I are, as he put it . . . mates."

I first pursed my lips in shock looking ahead, but then that shock became a subtle smile. _Atta boy, Ran! _I couldn't help thinking, even while appreciating the loneliness and hardship it would now mean for his widow. As Roana glanced my way in uncertainty, I now looked past her, giving this new woman a silent, accepting nod as we followed the coffin and its pallbearers along an ornate palace hallway towards the entrance where I could see an empty gun carriage was waiting.

— — — — —

Before long, this woman—I still didn't know her name—my mate, and I were following Ran's coffin on foot, as his family. Leaving the palace, it was conveyed on that horse-drawn gun carriage from the palace along the broad central avenue of Karl Johans Gate—'gate' being Norwegian for 'street'. Slowly, we processed among tree-lined promenades and grand, Neo-Classical buildings to Oslo Domkirke, the national cathedral nearby. It wasn't a full state funeral with brigades of soldiers ahead of us, or more than a few police lining the procession route, but it was close. The crowds who turned out to pay their respects for this previously unknown hero were modest but decent.

Giving a lifelong Viking pagan however, perhaps even an agnostic or atheist, a funeral mass at a Christian national cathedral would have been a ticklish situation to say the least—especially if Ran had close Dragon Berker relatives objecting. The king had even asked me about this at some length the previous evening during our talk, going so far as to offer a last-minute change to a secular, even palace venue, for any memorial commemoration I or the Baroness might deem best.

"Sir," I had finally decided to the king however, "one of our founders, Toothless, had been noted as saying in our Journal that, quote, 'Rituals are for those who participate.' Our tribe and nation will soon honour Ran in our way. But tomorrow is the Norwegian people's opportunity to honour Ran, even thank God for what Ran did, in their own way. They have long expressed such thanks in Oslo Domkirke," I said, remembering its name from the king's mention of it just a moment earlier, "and that is where my people, even Ran, I think, would be honoured to receive their thanks on this occasion."

Now, Ran's carriage was being led by a team of six white horses, guided by riders mounted on the right horse of each pair, accompanied by a small detachment of four mounted horseguards in front and four behind us. Both his medal, and his knight's sword—an honour and status Ran never achieved in our tribe—were still balanced atop his coffin, along with a wreath from the Norwegian Crown and People, as the cathedral's Great Bell mournfully tolled alone.

Not a word was spoken among Roana, myself and our new companion as we processed east a dozen or so blocks before arriving at the red-bricked cathedral. While Oleg gave Roana and I a surprised look as we made our way through the front entrance with this new woman at our side, I just gave him a silent glance and nod, as I then saw him hurriedly whispering into his wrist, presumably for a seat to be made available beside us for this additional guest, as Roana removed her dress uniform hat.

As the palace had largely been, the interior walls of this cathedral, too, were painted in a uniform, light cream colour, while the ceiling far above was richly painted, with frescoed scenes depicting various Biblical stories and passages, as well as stars and angels. The massed choir's a cappella singing was echoing throughout the space, as Roana, I, and our guest now followed and took our seats next to the Royal Family in a front pew in the right transept, with a young prince and his mother having to be accommodated on the pew behind us because of our additional guest.

"For Ran," Roana whispered to me as she looked at the altar and ornate altarpiece framing its large crucifix beyond the massed choir to the right of us at the far end of the nave or main space. While her previous self had once told me Hiccup had never hated the Christians, I got the feeling that assurance didn't quite extend to my mate.

"You've mated a person who has grown up in this," I whispered to her. "We are at peace now. All," I quietly emphasized, "are forgiven, as friends. Even Rökkr forgave and befriended the Catholic chaplain at Chief Garrison's funeral, remember?"

The king then moved forward on my other side onto his knees to pray, as we all then did in our pew.

"May my mate continue giving me wisdom, and strength," Roana prayed in a whisper directly into my ear, before facing forward and bowing her head as well.

I just put my arm around her back, drawing her close, as I took her right hand in mine on the wooden rail in front of us, bowing my head. Roana gave my hand a squeeze.

As I finished a short, silent prayer, mostly thanking God for Roana, and asking that Ran be at peace—I glanced past my mate to see this additional woman crossing herself, while still holding what presumably was Ran's copy of the Journal against her chest with one arm. She was definitely Christian, seemingly devout given her gesture. _It must have been an interesting courtship,_ I thought to myself.

Then, notes reverberating from the cathedral's massive organ brought us all to our feet. Discovering I was, or perhaps had been, Anglican, and that I was fairly well versed in both the liturgy and music—His Majesty had consulted me on the planned Order of Service for this funeral mass, and on the music and hymns. The king even summoned his private secretary to relay any last-minute changes we decided on to the cathedral on the spot.

Wishing I had at least once even broached the subject of religion with Ran, all I could do was close my eyes in the briefest of prayers, take a deep breath, and then review and pick. Thankful that the Church of Norway basically worshipped and sung the same way Anglicans did, I then hurriedly picked the most neutral hymn I could think of and find in the king's hymnal among my classical favourites for the opening—Franz Joseph Haydn's 'Creation', which spoke of God, Earth and the Universe in general terms that I felt both Christian and Berker could agree with. I then agreed with reflective and moving pieces later in the mass that the king had already selected, being an admirer of the classics himself.

As the congregation now sung that opening hymn though while Ran's coffin was brought forward among us by its bearers, I couldn't help being enchanted by Roana's clear, deep soprano signing voice, having picked up the tune quickly and reading the words from the hymnal we were sharing between us. I must have heard her humming in prayer with Substance, as well as singing ancient Viking ballads with others in the village half-drunk with mead in the past—but not like this.

I was going to ask her to sing again . . . alone, with me.

The First Reading was an Old Testament passage from late in the Book of Isaiah that I felt described the kind of peaceful and harmonious world Ran and Norwegian People's Aid were trying to create. For the Second Reading, the king had agreed with my recommendation of a reading from the Journal. No less than the king's personal copy of it was placed upon the elevated pulpit for Roana to read from in Old Norse—Berker accent and all.

The Journal of Berk, I mused with admiration and amazement once more, being read aloud in a Norse Christian cathedral, the national one . . . another vindication, even triumph for my people. Few of the assembled congregation probably understood it, but the passage was Gerhard's prophesy to Hiccup after our exodus, that one day, the Berk nation would re-emerge from hiding.

That day, thanks to Ran, had now come . . . at least in part.

— — — — —

Concluding her reading, Roana remained in the pulpit as everyone else rose to sing another hymn, while I began moving to join my mate in delivering Ran's eulogy. As had been the case with the Second or New Testament Reading, there was no Gospel Reading either, at my own request to the king. Aside from Ran not being Christian, reading from the heart of the Christian texts, some of which had been used to justify the attempted conquest and conversion of my people . . . I thought that might be a little too much for the sensibilities of some in the Berk nation, especially as our FSK were broadcasting a radio version of this historic event live for our people, via portable speakers in the village at New Berk—the first time this had been done.

"I am giving the eulogy now," I whispered though to the auburn-haired woman as she stood aside in the cathedral aisle to allow me to pass during the hymn. "Would you like to join me? Say something about Ran?"

"He vas a private man," she quietly replied, saying nothing more as she looked at me with moist eyes.

I nodded with a subtle, understanding smile as the darkly robed Cathedral Verger then led me across the Domkirk's broad central axis to the pulpit's narrow, spiralling stairs.

Once up in the pulpit, Roana and I then did what we always did together—I spoke in English, with her translating beside me, as well as speaking some of her own thoughts, this time in Bokmål. I had brought the draft text the Baronial staff had provided with me, but as with their original ideas for my cover . . . I basically tossed it.

"We are here today," I began off the cuff after the hymn had ended and there was silence once more, "to honour a man devoted to principle, to what was right, fair and just . . . even when you may not have thought he was doing so."

A quiet laughter rippled through the congregation as Roana finished her translation.

"Doctor Jorgenson—simply Ran to all of us who knew him—was a private, at times mysterious," I continued, glancing at the woman in the congregation who was apparently his mate, "but dedicated man . . ."

I now stopped myself, almost about to describe his work and exploits amid and after the battle on our island with the Soviets—but I realized I could not do that, given the whole thing was classified. Roana now cautiously looked at me as she finished translating.

" . . . He was always focused on fixing, healing. He would seemingly get irritated with me at times when tending an injury," I managed to continue, even though Roana had done that for me for the most part, "but that irritation, his version of a beside manner—it was his way of caring, of telling me to take more care of myself . . ."

I was now mentally flipping through pages of memories of him in my brain—most of which I could not talk about. Maybe the Barony had a good idea in giving me a draft text to speak from after all, no matter what it was.

"He was loved, brave," Roana picked up in my place now, speaking in English, and then translating in Bokmål. "When it counted, he never let those around him down . . . We are here today, because he sacrificed himself in Africa, defending a Norwegian Peoples' Aid team, and the nomadic villagers they were both treating, and ushering to safety . . . Some, including me," she said, as sadness now emerged, " . . . feel he left us too soon. There is much I for one, would like to apologise to him for . . . for misunderstanding him, taking him for granted . . . for dismissing him as less than he really was.

"But he never would be comfortable with such sentiments," she sniffed as I put an arm around her. "He would just move on to the next person, the next being, no matter who they were . . ." she said, giving me a knowing glance, "and give them the healing they needed."

"Ran has done much, so much, for the people of Berk, and now for the people of Norway, even Africa," I resumed, knowing I probably couldn't be too specific about the location of his death, given the Norwegian military escort his team had been getting. "He died, knowing what it was to care, and to love," I said, looking at his mate who gave me a tearful, nodding smile, "and to give oneself, in place of others. For this, he has earned a knighthood in the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit, the Medal of Heroism in Gold, the gratitude and admiration of the peoples of Norway and Berk together, and a lasting place in Valhalla, Heaven, and in our hearts.

"Keep watching over us, and healing us, my friend . . ." I finished, looking upwards.

"Våk over oss, og helbredet oss, min venn," Roana finished beside me with a melancholy smile as we then turned together and I led her back down the pulpit's stairs as the waiting verger then led us back to our seats.

"Takk . . .Thank you," the auburn-haired woman quietly said to us as my mate and I returned to our pew. There was much I now wanted to find out from her, as 'Panis Angelicus' was then beautifully sung solo by a soprano choirboy, accompanied by the cathedral organ and a string quartet.

— — — — —

Soon, as we sung singing the final, triumphal hymn, John Hughes' 'Cwm Rhondda', which had always been one of my favourites and which I had picked with the king to send everyone out on a high note—Ran's coffin was slowly processed back along the main aisle of the cathedral by bearers once more, this time to a black Saab hearse at the front entrance, that along with limousines, would convey us all back to the palace. Ran's body would lie in repose in the palace chapel again until we would fly him back to Berk the next day.

But the postlude music I had selected to follow the final hymn, Purcell's even livelier 'Trumpet Tune and Air', was so good, especially when played by a live trumpet with a full organ in an echoing cathedral space, that, "Majesty," I said to him behind me as we had almost reached the front door, "would you mind if we lingered and enjoyed this for a moment?"

"Not at all, Lance," he gladly replied, as we then just stopped the whole procession and exit of the congregation to enjoy the rest of this stirring music from the organ loft directly above us.

"I had my doubts about this upbeat selection of yours at the end of a funeral," the king now confided next to me during the piece's quieter and brief second movement, "but this is leaving me feeling really good. A brilliant stroke, Lance, brilliant."

"It's always been one of my favourites, sir," I replied, "always sent me away with a spring in my step."

"You do seem to know your classical music," he admired.

"I was in a church choir in primary and high school," I said, "used to go to concerts in college and afterwards. But," I sighed, "it's one of the things I've given up now to be where I am."

"Nonsense," the king said. "You should come to some concerts and festivals here in Oslo, now that you can. I insist, as my guest."

"Thank you, sir. I think I will," I replied with real gratitude now, feeling a dormant part of myself coming back to life.

"We should not be delaying things further," the queen interrupted to her husband though, indirectly prodding the rest of us as well.

"Things good should be paused for and enjoyed, Your Majesty," I then said, looking at the queen, "even at funerals. Besides, there's less than a minute, ten to go," I added, hearing the lively main theme return as the finale now.

"Thank you, Lance," the king said quietly with a subtle smile as I now savoured the rich, joyful music in full, closing my eyes, swinging my head a little side to side, even humming the bass parts. Feeling a slightly tighter gripping of my right arm, I cracked my eyes to see Roana was glancing, even smiling at me, having never seen this side of me back at the island.

With the final trilling notes and chord of trumpet and organ, I, and the king, led the entire congregation in applause at music well played. The joy among everyone—except perhaps the queen—was palpable as we now left the cathedral.

With Roana, myself, and our companion being invited to ride back with their Majesties in their limousine at the king's invitation, we couldn't talk with our new companion during the ride, but by the time we parted from the king's company during the reception a short time later back inside the palace, both Roana and I had to begin talking with this woman.

"Fyrir því drekar," our new friend began, right off the bat without prompting from either Roana or I, once we were off by ourselves in a corner. "Ran told me to greet you vith that. I should have done so last night at the vake, but didn't feel I could take you avay from the king and the receiving line, and palace staff didn't seem to want normal guests to linger."

"How . . . ?" I stammered, not knowing quite how to politely phrase the all-encompassing question I wanted to ask her.

"I am Doctor Marta Dronning . . . vell, Marta Jorgenson now, I guess," she introduced.

"Lance and Roana Hyse—I mean Ýsa," I corrected as Roana and I each shook her hand in turn. "Well both, actually . . . one surname for the Outside world, and one for the Berker."

"I have seen the news," Marta smiled. "My speciality is trauma surgery, but I have been practicing both that and general medicine with Norvegian Peoples' Aid lately. Ran and I met on his first mission. He seemed like a fish out of vater vith people, even as a young voman vas introducing him around our team. He later told me she vas just his counsellor though, ensuring a smooth placement vith us. It made me vonder about him at first, but even that first day, he vas peacefully vorking vith those elephants, even communing vith them, in a vay no one else, not even their handler, vas. Somehow though, I have alvays felt drawn to the lonely, so I began showing him the ropes. He seemed grateful for the kindness, and the respectful, patient understanding I vas showing him. As ve then vent out on our first mission—began vorking, treating villagers and bushfolk ve encountered—he just seemed so terribly conflicted and isolated as he nonetheless vould assess and treat patients vith remarkable efficiency and accuracy.

"'I can't tell you vhat is bothering me,' he pre-emptively told me as I brought him dinner at camp in the bush one night.

"'I don't vant you to,' I replied. 'I just vant you to feel better than you are.'

"Somehow, there vas a feeling even from the start that I didn't have much time vith him," she now mused. "I think he felt it, too. Ve just vent off my ourselves after dinner another night, and sat by a river, under the moon.

"'I still don't vant to talk,' he said.

"'Neither do I,' I agreed. 'Sometimes ve can't fit ourselves into just vords. There is so much more . . .'

"That broke the ice between us," the auburn-haired woman sighed to Roana and I, " . . . and it happened. Thank God it happened," she now said earnestly. "Ve vorked as a team, Ran and I, after that—like I had never experienced before. Ve vould treat one patient, moving right onto the next one. I began 'liaising' for him to the rest of the team, explaining and excusing things to them, usually vithin his hearing. That relaxed Ran, allowed him to finally be more friendly vith the others. He vas still quiet, but he vas strong, at peace.

"I proposed to him," she smiled, "just two veeks later. Ve had already been sleeping together several times, off by ourselves. He admitted he vasn't Christian, seeing my Bible and me pray. But I said it helped me to be the angel those around me needed. He said he vould be lucky to have such an angel at his side. Ve married ourselves, under the vaning moon, that night."

"Thank you . . ." Roana now tearfully said as she moved to embrace Marta. "He deserved that. He did."

Marta was clearly moved, too. A moment later though, recomposed, she resumed her story.

"Our vork together vas our honeymoon after that," she continued. "Even vhen ve got back to Kenya, ve immediately accepted another mission . . . a dangerous one to Somalia. He wrote the one airmail letter to you, quickly. I sat next to him as he did. He vas going to mention me in it, but he ran out of space vith just the two pages. I told him he should have written in Bokmål, asking him why he wrote in such large Old Norse runes. He just smiled vithout explanation, knowing I vouldn't press him, and told me he would introduce me 'properly' in the next letter.

"Just eight days after that, trekking in the bush by elephant among several nomadic villages—eight wonderful days of heaven on Earth . . ." her voice trailed off, "ve vere ambushed, as ve triaged and treated those villagers that one day. He and I tried to save our military escort, but each of them vas shot right in the head, killed instantly. Ran vas shot in the upper abdomen in that first volley, but he shook it off for the moment. He just took command, became a varrior I had never seen in him before. He rolled and grabbed one of our soldier's assault rifles, killing one of the insurgents off in the distance vith a single shot to the head, just as they had done.

"That gave them pause," she said. "A few more shots, and one more killed insurgent—that frightened them off. He then simply said that ve vere leaving . . . everyone. He got an elephant to lie down without question. He and the village men then loaded the three dead soldiers on, knowing ve couldn't leave them behind as they veren't supposed to be there anyvay, and ve left vith the villagers, vith Ran and his 'elephant friend' as I called it, following us at the rear back towards Kenya, an overnight trek avay to the southvest.

"He vouldn't allow himself to sleep that night as ve vere halfway back," she ruefully said. "I had to order him to lie down so I could check and see if I could remove the bullet that vas now making him grimace vith pain. Ve compromised, and I operated on him using only a local anaesthetic, with him fully alert, a rifle at the ready. No sooner did I have the bullet out and him bandaged up, than ve vere fired upon again. Ran, the brave fool, charged them, firing in an arc. It vorked for a vhile. Their shooting stopped, and I thought I heard them running off in the bush.

"A few hours later, around dawn, ve vere being fired at again . . . by more guns, more insurgents. Ran vas down to bullets in just one rifle now. But he did another firing charge to drive them off as he ordered the rest of us onward. That vorked for less than thirty minutes this time. Ve then heard more than one jeep coming from their direction. Ran grabbed one of our soldiers' radios and reached the Kenyans. They said ve had to make it to their side of the border. So we started running . . . the staff, the villagers, and the elephants. Not fast though—most of the fourteen villagers vere so veak, they couldn't.

"The jeeps vere sounding closer and closer. Then, ve started seeing them around corners of the dirt road, off in the distance. They vere many insurgents this time—both on foot and in two jeeps. Ve had all heard stories, even eye vitness accounts, of vhat the insurgents vanted—boys to turn into obedient, brainwashed child soldiers, girls as vives, or vorse . . . Europeans as hostages to be ransomed, vhite vomen as prized slaves, vorth a ton of arms or food. The medical supplies and food we carried were nice, too. But they vere a secondary consideration.

"Vhen we saw them approaching, somehow Ran and his elephant . . . they looked each other in the eye, briefly. I looked forward of us, but could not see the border ahead yet. Vhen I looked at Ran again, I knew vhat he vas going to do. I asked, begged to go with him . . . but he simply said, 'I vill not let them take you.

"'Ensure my book, the Journal, gets back to my people,' he continued as we both ducked amid another volley of gunfire while he quickly transferred some bullets from the one fairly full clip to one of the empty ones, putting it back in its gun. 'Ask for the Baroness, the Chief, or Roana,' he continued. 'Tell them, 'Fyrir því drekar,' in greeting from me. They will know vhat it means. This book must get back to them . . . it doesn't matter about me.

"'You have shown me love,' he said. 'Now I show you vhat love is.' He then kissed me vith such passion," she wept, " . . . and then he ordered me to go. 'Protect the others,' he said, giving me the one rifle vith most of the ammunition. He took the other gun, vith its bayonet. His elephant knelt down vithout his asking, and Ran climbed on. Together, they rose up," she said, tearfully shaking her head with aching sadness in her eyes, " . . . and they vent off, charging tovards the insurgents—Ran firing the few shots he had from astride his elephant, trying to make each one count against the insurgents. Their jeeps stopped, even started steaming. He had disabled them, even shot a couple of insurgents. But the firing the two of them then faced . . . it vas vithering.

"I saw them fall . . . I heard him then yell inside me, 'RUN!'" she said. "I ran. Ve soon encountered three jeeps of Kenyan soldiers, with machine gunners standing ready in each one. They said they had heard gunfire, presumed it was us, and crossed the border under orders from their senior officer. I said ve had to go back, that Ran, my husband, vas still there. I vent vith them in their jeeps. Around one bend, ve found the two of them lying in the road . . . Ran still astride his elephant. The insurgents vere close beyond. The Kenyans fired their guns and several rocket grenades. That drove the insurgents off, forcing them to leave their jeeps behind. I dashed to Ran, but . . ." she said, her voice breaking and her eyes closing, "I became relieved Ran vas not still there, inside his body."

Roana and I both now embraced Marta. She briefly lowered her head against our shoulders before regaining her composure.

"That's vhen Ran became part of me," she continued, her tears diminishing. "He has given me the strength, the calm, the love . . . like nothing and no one else ever have. I knew my next task vas simply to get his body home. Dealing vith the Kenyan military and authorities, vorking vith bureaucracies, the Norvegian embassy . . . none of that bothered me. Getting here has been nothing.

"But now," Marta said, "I do not know vhat is next . . . yet, I do.

"I have read your Journal, as I vaited in morgues and embassies, at night, and on the vay back," she continued. "The Old Norse vas not easy, but I had taken electives in it and the sagas and edda in college. I just finished the Journal yesterday—appropriate, don't you think? And, as I said, I also saw the news late last night on TV.

"Ran had help, didn't he, connecting as he did vith the elephants," she finished. "And I think I know vhere that comes from."

"What do you want?" I said, with a subtle, knowing smile.

"Ran owes me his vorld," she said, " . . . all the rest he vould not tell me. He told me he used to be a doctor among his people, in a remote village—but nothing more. He simply said he had been through much there, that it had helped make him who he vas, but that he could not find his own there, as he now had vith me.

"I hate gaps," Marta then said, " . . . missing parts and pieces. I vant to bring Ran, both body and soul, home . . . all the vay home. And I vant to do vhat he vanted to there, but could not.

"I vant to complete his circle," she finished.

"You will," I now promised, " . . . you will."

— — — — —

Marta became one of us then and there, even part of us.

"Oleg," I said, calling him over without taking my eyes off Marta, "Marta is Ran's mate, and a full Dragon Berker, as of this moment. Please see that she is treated as such, and please ask our hosts if she could be accommodated as his mate, here in the palace."

"Yes, sir," our Guardian sighed, looking aside and raising his eyebrows, before motioning me aside. "May I ask how you have come to this decision, sir?" he then quietly wondered.

"She has just told me the story of how she and Ran met and married themselves in Africa," I quietly replied. "There's too much detail, too much emotion, and too accurate a description of Ran for me not to believe it."

"How do we know we can trust her? That she's genuine?" he then whispered to me.

"She has his Journal, she's read it, and she's made the connections with the news stories," I tallied up in reply. "I'll presume she's known too much for too long, so what choice do we have, no matter what, but to integrate her into us?"

"True enough," he accepted as we then returned to Roana and Marta.

"M'am," Oleg then quietly said to Marta, "you are aware that upon leaving Oslo, you will have to be 'crossed over', all ties severed. So we will need to—"

"That is no longer the case," I then gently interrupted him. "We make it work for me now, so we make it work for Marta as well. Just blend her into the Barony—see that a new standard protocol is established around this. Have the Outside Guardians keep the Baroness and I appraised as you develop it."

"Yes, sir," he now sighed, raising his eyebrows again and turning away to begin the multiple tasks I had assigned to him.

"You know you're frying his brain, poor guy," Roana noted beside me.

"Even he has admitted he's had little to do over the winter here," I replied, glancing his way. "He and the other Guardians are just having to work a bit now. But I'll go easy on him . . . Oleg," I then said, calling him back, "just focus on settling Marta into our nation. I'll take care of introducing her to the king and getting her settled here. Bypassing chains and going straight top to top . . . it'll save time."

"Very good, sir," he simply replied before turning around and seeming to go back to work on the other matter.

"I do not vant to be causing trouble," Marta cautioned.

"For all you and Ran have done, and are doing for us now," I assured, turning back to her, " . . . we owe you this—both of you."

Marta now smiled . . . genuinely, tearfully smiled.

— — — — —

Soon during that reception, I spotted opportunities to have brief private talks with both His Majesty about Marta, and with the Baroness as well. She raised an eyebrow when I also floated the idea I had discussed with the king the previous evening, but in the end, as she had with my earlier idea on revealing myself and the Berk Nation, she came round and agreed to support and help me.

For some reason, standing close together, with her looking up somewhat at me while we quietly talked, seemed to help.

That evening, the various dignitaries, diplomats, nobles, and the rest of the official mourners and Royal Court were gone. It was just Roana, the Baroness, myself, and the king and queen at dinner, along with Marta now. Ties and formal wear were gone as well, as we joined them in the couple's private dining room, with Roana and I wearing dress casual clothes that Oleg had seen that we were provided with—in Roana's case, a casual light blue long-sleeved blouse with a green skirt, and me dressed in a burgundy shirt and grey slacks, essentially as I used to on the Outside.

The king and queen took an instant liking to Marta, practically as soon as I had introduced them later during the reception. The Baroness seemed a little more cautious about this sudden newcomer, but a few more reassuring glances from me convinced her to basically trust my judgment.

The king kept English as the default language of conversation throughout dinner however—my shortcomings in modern Norwegian likely becoming well known by now.

After Marta bravely shared her story again over dinner, "What do you intend to do now?" the king couldn't help asking.

"Find a new life . . . vith my husband's people," she replied. "As much as I might be valued there, I cannot go back to Africa now."

"To Berk's newest citizen then," he proposed in a toast, remaining seated. "May you find a long and happy life there."

"She will," I pledged, raising my own glass.

"We should allow the staff to clear the dining room," the queen then suggested. "Would you ladies care to join me?"

Roana flashed me a pained glance, while I just gave her a reassuring one. "Majesty," I suggested, "might Roana join us?" For some reason, I didn't want to call Roana my wife . . . not now anyway.

"Of course," the king warmly accepted.

— — — — —

"I see you two are very close," His Majesty admired almost as soon as the doors to his private study were closed by footmen. "I could even tell the day I visited you two at the lifeboat station. Admirable, even enviable. Schnapps, for you as well, Roana?" he invited, now standing at his liquor cabinet.

"Thank you, Majesty," my mate answered, "but I can't enjoy alcohol, even mead now, during my pregnancy."

"Of course," the king replied. "Forgive me. Orange juice then?"

"Yes please," she smiled, giving me a surprised glance that he was serving us.

"I take it you're not the domestic type," he said as he poured our drinks, grabbing a bottle of orange juice from a mini-fridge within the cabinet.

"Well . . ." my mate hedged.

"My wife and I talk," he smiled as he then brought us our drinks. "We're close, but we don't have quite the same interests as you and Lance must share."

"We're both so busy with medicine and biology through the day, and now with tribal leadership as well," she replied taking her drink, "that I just don't have much energy for anything else at the end of it. Our housemate, Tana, who has practically been a mother to me for some time . . . it makes her feel needed, and me very relieved."

"Especially with the child you're expecting," the king noted as he now poured his own drink.

"Especially," Roana agreed, taking a sip of her juice.

As the king then returned with his own drink, he gave me a direct, almost questioning glance. I just quietly shook my head before Roana looked my way as I then quickly took a sip of my schnapps.

"So tell me, Roana," the king then said, sitting down in his chair, "what is it like to live with dragons?"

I was now in the king's debt . . . and he knew it.

— — — — —

"Lance . . ." Roana said later as we walked the hallways back to our suite, unescorted this time, "thank you."

"It wasn't quite the history-making talk mine was," I replied, "but you also skipped a lot of Christian minutiae in going over the funeral mass this time. Having to skim the Old Testament quickly for a suitable First Reading was a fair amount of work—fortunately the king had an English Bible, to keep his language skills up, he told me. Also fortunately, I'd been a good student in Sunday School growing up."

"Looks like you'll have someone to talk about that with in Marta then when we get back home," my mate noted, "and I'm sure she'll appreciate it, too."

"Something bothering you?" I perceptively asked.

"Losing her love . . . losing Ran," she replied, shaking her head. "I don't know how I'd handle that if I were her—I don't think I could. Gods, that's so unfair for her . . . and it scares me. If Ran had died and I had met Marta before the Soviet invasion . . . I would not have let you go into battle against them."

"And deny me being chief?" I wondered as we reached our room and I opened the door for her. "Possibly keep me from being able to do all this? Someone besides you and I leading our people through this challenge and transition?"

"You have me thwarting the fates now," she sighed.

"Things didn't happen in that order, or that way at all," I replied, "so the fates are not thwarted. The king was right though . . ."

"Right? How?" Roana asked as I shut the door to our room before we turned toward one another again.

"We are close," I said, taking her into my arms as she draped hers around my neck. Roana just smiled as we warmly embraced. "And I want us to be close . . . properly."

"How are we not close properly?" she now wondered, pulling back slightly and giving me a curious look.

"I don't want us to get married in a church," I said, "but there's this old-fashioned, Outsider part of me that just wants to do some things right. And I want to involve you," I added, "but I also want to surprise you. I am telling you now, because you are my mate whom I love more than life itself. But I want to give you a gift, Roana . . . something that is so special, and something that all who we care about can share in as well. Would you let me?"

"You want me to guess what it is?" she asked with a subtle smile, "because I have a good idea."

"You are my mate, because you are blindingly intelligent," I smiled.

"Get off it," she practically laughed.

"You are," I assured. "You've probably figured this whole thing out.

"But," I added, "I would ask you to put it all out of your head. I may not be able to keep it a secret from you in the end. But for now, I would like to try, because I want you to enjoy the journey towards it here—even make it a gift—for us to enjoy all the mysteries, anticipation and revelations together. So I will be asking Tor to screen some communiqués and transmissions that I won't be wanting you to see or hear, okay?"

Roana was now smiling.

"Okay?" I pressed, smiling, too.

"Okay," she accepted, her smile even bigger now, before she looked down, losing her smile somewhat.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Now I'm feeling even worse for Marta," she said. "She only gets a mate in spirit to remember and connect with as best she can now, while I get one in the flesh who is planning and scheming some wonderful surprise for me."

"Close your eyes," I gently encouraged as I embraced her closely again, closing my own. "Spirit, even Ran," I then said, "please do what is right, and good, for Marta."

"Please," Roana said as well.

" . . . Amen," I slowly concluded, wanting the prayer to be sincere and not rushed.

"Feel better?" I asked, looking at her once more.

"I will always feel something for Marta now," she said, "and I will let her know it in the days and months to come . . . especially as she double-checks my pregnancy with me. I would much prefer a female doctor watching over me than a male one."

"Ran's final gift to you," I said.

"Yeah," my mate now agreed with a smile, "it is . . . So, can I start this journey with you?" she finally asked, seeming freer to do so now. "And if so, how does it begin?"

"Roana," I then said, dropping to one knee, "will you not only mate with me . . . but marry me, as well?"


	43. Chapter 43

"Thank you . . ." I heard and felt breathed against my cheek, as lips then found and kissed mine as well, while arms, legs, an entire body, pleasurably proceeded to envelope me from the left side.

"Enjoying the journey already, aren't you?" I smiled as my eyes opened amid the daylight now around both of us.

"You have given me the best memento I could ask for, from any trip," Roana sighed against me as we slowly enjoyed our second and final morning in the palatial bed we were sharing. "Something to savour and look forward to, all at the same time. You know how good you are?"

"You've helped me to become what I am now," I replied.

"I did say yes though, right?" she asked.

"Over and over again," I smiled, "overcome with joy as you fell to your knees in front of me, in bed as we couldn't stop celebrating—with you almost screaming it at certain points—even before that as we brushed our teeth together."

"Lance . . . ohh man," she sighed, hugging me tightly under the covers again.

"You said that a lot, too," I assured as I was then almost fiercely kissed.

"You Outsiders may have a point with this engagement and wedding thing when it's done right," she sighed, with me still firmly in her grip. "We're still sleeping together nightly before it happens though."

"Fortunately that's covered by your mating thing," I noted, "and by what we've produced together."

"Grrrrr," she growled, squeezing and rocking me now, "you've got me wound up with such intense gratitude, I don't know what to do with it."

I just chuckled, holding her tightly as a moment enjoyably passed between us.

"Don't die on me, okay?" she finally said more quietly though, her grip relaxing around me, but her head remaining pressed against my shoulder.

"Gonna condemn me to live on alone with our dragons like Hiccup, eh?" I gently replied.

"No," she replied, shaking her head against my shoulder. "No. I would never want that for you, or us. Somehow, one day, I want Spirit to just take us, together—while we're passionately expressing our love. Twin fatal heart attacks would be just about perfect, or even better, twin brain aneurisms while making love. We don't have a chance to know what hit us."

"That's got my vote," I warmly agreed.

"I feel so sorry for Marta though," my mate now sighed, "that she can't experience this . . . nestling, the physical stuff, anymore. I would love and love you in my heart, Lance, if you passed first—but a woman needs this, too."

"I know," I softly replied, kissing her temple as I held her, " . . . men do, too."

"I want to make things, even life, worthwhile for Marta now—at least help," my mate replied. "Otherwise, I'll feel guilty for every nice thing you do for me that she no longer gets to enjoy with Ran."

"Well, knowing Ran, that might leave some room," I qualified.

"He loved her in his own way," Roana defended however, "as much and as richly as you love me. I know he did."

"You want to check on her?" I asked. "She should be just down the hall, maybe even right next door—someplace anyway."

"I should . . . but since I don't know where to go, maybe that's my answer for now," she shrugged. "Just don't you die on me. I want that to be my wedding present. I now know, even feel, why Astrid was asking Hiccup the same thing she was in the Journal."

I held Roana very tightly now. "May you, may each of us," I said, closing my eyes, "always find the strength, the presence, and the love of the other that we need . . . no matter what confronts us."

"Amen . . ." she said this time as she buried her face against my shoulder and neck.

We just lay there once more, Roana and I, in that bed for a moment . . . savouring one another, in this life, these bodies, before a warning knock sounded at the door and it opened.

"Oleg," I greeted, not minding his entrance at all while I continued to hold my mate in bed.

"Coffee, sir and m'am," he replied, entering with a tray in one hand before he set it down on my nightstand again. "And the king wonders if you would care to join him for breakfast in his private dining room, in thirty minutes if you're willing."

"Allows time for a decent shower along with coffee," I replied.

"And a slightly slower shave for you," my mate added, still unabashedly nestling against me. "Oleg, have you checked on Marta yet?"

"She has a lady-in-waiting from the palace," he replied. "But I'll inquire."

"We'll miss you, Oleg," Roana smiled.

"I am looking forward to getting home to my own family," he said. "But I already spoil my wife with coffee in bed each morning, so my routine won't change very much . . . except for having to get properly dressed before I do so. I'm sure we'll be in touch though, and I'll be doing all this for you again—especially now you've revealed yourselves to the Outside. Who knows, perhaps you can host my wife and I and our little girl on the island some time."

"You set a tall standard for me to follow, Oleg," I smiled.

"You have a girl now?" Roana admired against me. "You should have told us."

"We've all been just a little busy. But enjoy your coffee, then it's full dress, one more time," our Guardian smiled as he left, closing the door.

"You ready to go back to dragons and Viking medieval primitiveness?" Roana asked, seemingly reluctant to even move from my side though. "Without that vacation you asked for?"

"That often feels like a vacation . . . at least when you allow it to. Why do you think I sleep late there?" I smiled.

— — — — —

Soon, Roana and I were caffeinated and showered, and she'd even given me a shave in towels on the bed.

"It's the least you deserve, my love," she said as she pampered me, carefully stroking and shaving my face around my goatee once more.

"We wake up slowly back home tomorrow morning," I said, almost like a ventriloquist, trying not to move my jaw, "even heads under the covers for a while . . . no matter what."

That caused Roana to lean forward around me and give me a big, tight hug.

Fortunately, watching the ornate little clock on my nightstand, we were fully dressed in suit and uniform once more, with Roana even straightening my strap and badge of office by the next time Oleg opened our door. Soon, we were following him down a palace hallway almost as wide as our room.

"We're collecting Marta en route," he assured as we passed more than one set of other double doors.

"Glad I didn't try and find her on my own," Roana noted.

"Most of the other suites are unoccupied," Oleg noted in front of us, "except for the Baroness. She is already at breakfast with His Majesty though."

"Early riser," I sighed. "Should have known."

"They are old friends," our Guardian noted ahead of us. "They see each other regularly."

"Won't worry about it then," I decided.

Oleg then turned and knocked at another set of doors as they soon opened.

"Marta," my mate greeted her. "How are you doing?"

"This feels like a different vorld to me," she sighed. "Almost like he's gone to one heaven, while I've gone to another."

Roana just moved to embrace Marta.

"We have a dragon who just might be able to help with such things," my mate replied.

"I knew it!" Marta now smiled. "But they're more intelligent now?"

"They have perhaps evolved as much as humanity has over the last thousand years," Roana answered.

"That is saying much—but perhaps it is not," Marta noted. "Thank you though. Even while I have not yet arrived . . . I feel as if I have found home now."

"I want you as my doctor," my mate warmly added, laying a hand on her own abdomen, "as I enter my final months of pregnancy. I've been basically doing self-assessments as I have been reluctant to see the FSK medic—he doesn't seem familiar with Obstetrics—and Ran . . ."

"Say no more," Marta agreed with a smile. "But you vill be far easier than some of the African vomen and pregnancies I have dealt vith, so no vorries . . . no vorries at all."

"Marta," my mate decided, "even though Ran has a house in our village that you're entitled to—as there is someone living in it at the moment, you're staying with us tonight, okay? Dragon style!"

"I cannot vait!" the auburn-haired woman said, as she and my mate now followed Oleg arm-in-arm to breakfast, leaving me to follow behind. I didn't really mind though.

— — — — —

It was then a fairly quick breakfast with the king, before the queen joined us and we proceeded by limousine to our last official duty together . . . the joint funeral of the three Norwegian soldiers who had died in the initial ambush. As the circumstances of their deaths had to remain classified, there was no grand public funeral for them . . . just a quiet one on the nearby Army base, attended by the king and queen though, with our Berk delegation feeling we should pay our respects as well, supporting their families who were grieving just as much as Marta and we were over Ran.

The king did step forward once more though to lay medals on each of their coffins before stepping back and saluting them, a massed military choir providing the appropriate atmosphere.

After the service, the Baroness, Roana and myself were personally meeting the soldiers' families beside their Majesties.

"Your soldiers are valiant and giving warriors to us, deserving of our deepest respect and support," I said to them as Roana translated beside me. I would have added, 'Let us know if there is anything we can do,' but we didn't exactly maintain an embassy in Oslo . . . just a café in Wønur, along with a largely hidden and dispersed business empire. So there was no easy way to contact us, apart from randomly encountering an Outside Guardian, knocking at the door of the Baroness' manor house, or through classified military and government channels.

So I let it drop.

During that somewhat smaller and less busy reception, Roana and I also had a chance to finally meet with some of the Norwegian People's Aid medical team, which Marta introduced us to as she bid farewell to them. We also met the Barony counsellor who had worked with Ran.

"It's not your fault," I preemptively assured the young brunette woman, seeing her somewhat downcast.

"I know," she said. "I've just never sent a client to his death before."

"You helped Ran find himself—his best self, and his wife," I said with Marta and Roana beside me. "They wouldn't have met otherwise. And you've helped the Berk Nation further emerge from a thousand years of hiding to the public recognition and respect we're enjoying now. You did all that. Never forget it."

I left her with a big, tearful smile, and an invitation to come visit us on the island, anytime. I wanted more Outside Berkers visiting and circulating with us now.

Then, bidding our farewell to the queen afterwards as she took a separate car back to the palace, the king took us in his limousine to the airport, where we drove up beside a somewhat larger white Dassault Falcon jet this time, given we had a coffin to transport with us.

"Keep in touch, my friend," the king said as he gave me a final handshake and embrace. "I will never forget what you have done," he quietly added in my ear, "and I will get to work on that request of yours."

"Thank you, sir," I gratefully whispered back. "Address anything to me, directly. Our FSK will have instructions to route them to me."

The king nodded with a broad smile as we shook hands one more time before he moved to bid adieu to my mate next to me.

"You have a very good mate," he then assured Roana as they embraced as well. "I am so glad to see you happy as you are now."

He gave her a final smiling look, holding her hand with both of his. Roana almost gave him a quizzical smile back. But fortunately, the king gave nothing further than that away.

"Glad for å se at du er en del av Berk stamme," he then said to our newest citizen, Marta, glad she was part of the Berk tribe, embracing her as well. "Du er med svært gode mennesker nå," he added, assuring her she was with good people.

"Takk, Deres majestet. Eg kan fortelle," she replied next to us with a smile.

The Baroness gave us each a quick hug as well, and then backed away.

"You're not coming?" I wondered.

"The Barony was moved and concentrated around your island when the Storting was formed in the Nineteenth Century," she replied, "to ensure a unified and effective voting block. My baronial manor is down this way, to be near the capital where our barons have always needed to be—although I do have a home up there. I just visit when the weather's nice. You're the Viking, remember? Besides, I have to get to work in order to pay for all you've asked for now."

Roana then just gave me a look.

"Our people are worth it," I assured to my mate with a defensive shrug.

Roana was still looking at me as she, Marta, Oleg and myself climbed aboard that jet, the engines soon powering up and an attendant closing the door from the inside this time. Ran's coffin was fortunately out of sight in a small rear cargo compartment, but we all knew it was there.

My mate was still giving me chilly glances as we sat together and buckled in while the plane taxied toward take-off.

"Just how expensive is this thing you're getting or doing for me and our people?" she finally wondered, just as our jet lined up on the main runway.

"What happened to the goodwill? The slack I earned last night?" I wondered.

She maintained her look at me though, waiting for an answer.

"Expenditures will be involved," I then replied, just as three smaller jet engines roared behind us, accelerating to full and giving me an excuse to let them drown out any further answer as we took off.

— — — — —

Before long, we were landing at the Ørland Air Base, where we transferred almost directly to a waiting Westland Sea King transport helicopter, all of us standing to one side as Ran's coffin was transferred first by a military honour guard however, with our combined luggage following behind it.

"I vould like to sit vith my husband and mate, if that is alright," Marta decided on the tarmac, still holding Ran's copy of the Journal that she never seemed to let go of.

"Would you like one of us to sit with you?" Roana gently asked.

"No," our friend declined. "I vant him to reveal his home to me . . . my new home."

"Just don't be surprised when—" I began to say.

Marta held up a hand interrupting me though. "Allow me to discover it all for myself," she replied, " . . . vith him."

I just nodded as Oleg, Roana and I turned towards the helicopter.

"Sorry to land and run this time," I apologised to my brigader cousin beside me as he caught up with us.

"I'm the one making you do it," he smiled. "This crew has a further flight to make this evening after ferrying you, so don't make them wait on your end, alright?"

"It's just nice to have family in the Air Force business," I replied.

"The Baroness is still getting the bill though," he said, saluting me.

"You beat me to it," I quipped, returning his salute.

"You're a head of state now," Gunnar smiled. "That outranks me. But you can still play colonel sometimes if you want."

I shook my head, smiling as Roana, Oleg and I boarded the helicopter just ahead of Marta, working our way around Ran's flag-draped coffin in the centre to sit on rougher troop seating this time at the cabin's rear. After Marta had boarded, an airman slid the large side door closed from the outside. I turned to see Roana already wearing a radio headset this time, even holding a hand up to me as she listened, the helicopter's larger turbines above us whining as we were soon taking off.

"Takk, Tor . . ." she said, then continuing with what seemed to be other instructions in Bokmål. Learning that modern language with its different accent would be one of my next projects.

"Tor says that all will be in readiness for Ran's funeral," she then said to me, taking the headset off and hanging it on a bulkhead next to her as we flew off towards the north. "It will be at sunset this evening."

"Being Christian, I wonder if Marta would have preferred a burial for Ran among the Barony on the mainland?" I asked, almost having to yell amid the greater noise in this Sea King's cabin.

"She is becoming Dragon Berker now," my mate replied. "This is burial at home to us. Ran never considered the mainland home. He wouldn't want that."

"You knew him better than I did," I decided, letting it go instead.

"Substance will be ready," Roana added, "but you should help officiate as well, ease Marta into the way we do things."

"You help and explain," I requested, "like you did with me."

"Hopefully better though. You've told me you were a little resistant," she replied with a gentle smile.

— — — — —

In a while, a squad of Dragons and Riders were suddenly emerging from low clouds, surrounding us in the air. We had entered home airspace.

I saw Marta instinctively almost jump in surprise as the dragons appeared around us. But then, sitting on a fold-down jump seat to the left of Ran's coffin, I saw her right hand rest on that coffin as she then looked intently out the large side window next to her. Ran was now indeed revealing his world to Marta.

Sitting behind them, I could see that Marta and Ran did indeed love each other, the two now sharing a final discovery together as best they could. I could see Marta wiping tears from her eyes though, trying to hide a sad grimace of pain as she maintained a steady gaze out that window at the Nightmare and Rider flying beside her, her right hand continuing to caress that coffin.

The sight of them together as they were was truly bittersweet though. I felt Roana turn her face, pressing her forehead and the bridge of her nose against my cheek and jaw as tears fell from her eyes. Quietly putting my right arm around her, I embraced and rocked her gently, finding a few tears now falling from my own eyes.

Needing to distract even myself for a moment, I glanced ahead out the pilots' windows to see Rökkr had taken lead position himself ahead of us, wearing his saddle and strap of office but without a rider, as we flew that final turn now over our island's eastern mountains.

"You're home, Ran," I couldn't help quietly saying out loud, " . . . not the way any of us wanted you to be," I added, lowering my head though. I could feel Roana gently gripping my hand in silent agreement and now raising her face to kiss my cheek as we descended into our valley that was still changing from the snowy white of winter towards the green of summer.

The wash of the helicopter's blades was soon beating the valley grass flat below us as we landed just above the village. The rotor and turbines were then powering down to a stop as the doors on both sides of the helicopter were slid open for us.

_This 'Shangri La' . . . my home,_ I found myself silently marvelling all over again, breathing in its familiar, bracing sea air once more as I emerged from the opposite side across from Marta, onto home soil once more, looking at the snow-capped mountains around us.

Roana quickly parted from me after we had emerged from the helicopter though to go around to the other side and check on Marta while a local honour guard of FSK and Riders assembled in front of me now. I noticed both the Berker and Norwegian flags were displayed once more as the guard assembled. These two flags likely always would be displayed together from here on among us. We were basically a sovereign dependency of Norway anyway, with far more of us living on the Norwegian mainland than on our own island.

I now felt a nudging, a couple of them from behind, accompanied by a mid-ranged bark.

"Spring! Rökkr!" I turned, greeting them as they stood side by side. "Where's Substance?"

"Down there," Spring said, gesturing his head to the far end of the village.

"For the funeral," I deduced.

"Yep," my dragon son said, even picking up my slang now as I turned again to see Roana and Marta coming towards us around the helicopter's front.

"The sun's waning fast—hi Rökkr, hi Spring," my mate said, bringing a quietly crying Marta with an arm around her. "Lance, could you get the honour guard started?"

"Sorry I am not doing vell," Marta apologised. "This is all incredible . . . but it is the end of Ran's journey now."

"And the beginning of a new one for you, Marta," I said, embracing her as she held me back so tightly.

"Stay with her," Roana then decided. "Since I'm in uniform, all the FSK, including Tor, are looking to me. I'll get things started. Just follow with Marta behind," as she then departed to take command of the honour guard.

"I think I'll be going now, sir," Oleg said behind me, still seated in our helicopter. "The helicopter won't be staying long, and I should be getting home."

"Don't want to take the suit?" I wondered, glancing down at myself still wearing it, while I kept Marta at my side.

"It's yours, sir," our Guardian replied. "I'm sure I can pick it up for dry cleaning and storage sometime."

"We can always fly you out by Dragon Rider," I offered. "Our people don't get to do that much these days."

"You think I should, sir?" he asked.

"If you don't mind, Oleg," I said, "yeah, I think you should stay. You're family, too."

He now smiled as he unfastened his seat belt and stepped out of the helicopter to join Marta and I, as he then directed two of the FSK to bring Marta's and our luggage out of its rear cargo area behind our seats. It was good to see him delegating, too.

A mixture of bugles, Viking horns and dragons sounded as the honour guard then came to attention, and Ran's coffin was reverently turned and removed from the helicopter in front of us. Having grown used to gun carriages, and even moving our dragon dead on rolling platforms, I had forgotten that our pallbearers here would be walking Ran's coffin all the way through the village—slowly, so as not to upset the wreath, medal or sword still placed on top of it.

Marta was right. Ran's procession and funeral in Oslo didn't feel so bad because they weren't the end of his journey home . . . just a waypoint. This was, however. With Roana now leading the procession herself, holding a sword upright in front of her—a break perhaps from conventional military protocols with the commanding officer leading the honour guard, as in Berk we believe leaders should lead from the front—I guided Marta with an arm around her as we fell in behind the coffin and its pallbearers, while Ran was carried a final time through the village he had known as home.

Our FSK didn't have a full band, and the village didn't know what one was—so we just processed, slowly, amid a silence that was broken only by the sounds of a gentle ocean breeze, and the surf pounding beyond the edge of the ceremonial area at the far end of the village.

"That's Ran's home," I said to Marta, breaking that silence and pointing out one brown, tall, rounded Berker house among several as we approached it on our right.

"It vill be difficult to live there alone, even with him surrounding me," she sniffed with a slight laugh.

"You don't have to live there now," I quietly assured. "Roana's right—you can stay with us, for as long as you like."

"I think I vould like that," she decided. "I just need to talk about him at times, until the pain stops."

Divorce had been painful enough for me, but this seemed far more so for Marta. I didn't know if the pain of a real love, taken away, would ever truly stop. I could see what Roana was talking about now . . . why she was so guilty, and so scared. Death had not been this close to us before. Sure, I had been just a few metres away as I ended the lives of four Soviet commandos, and then a fifth, during the battle. But I didn't know them, or befriend any grieving partners or family they may have had back home. I had also presided over the funerals over scores of our dragon and human fallen after that battle . . . but this death was worse. There was an emptiness, a gap, a cold ending in our village now as I followed that slim, flag-draped oak coffin with its tapered ends, as European coffins were.

_Ran,_ I even began to mentally debate with him now, _should you have done what you did? Couldn't you have found a way to avoid death? To live, here, for Marta? She's about to lose the last physical shred of you. She deserves more. She deserves better._

No answers came though . . . just more silence, except for the wind, and the sea.

Finally, we arrived at the ceremonial area and cliff. Substance was waiting, her eyes closed in seeming meditation. Still holding her sword in front of her, Roana then turned her honour guard procession to the side as the pallbearers carefully laid the coffin down upon the hallowed, ashen ground between them. In turn, the FSK and Dragon Rider pallbearers then removed Ran's medal, his sword, and finally the Berk standard from his coffin, leaving his wreath in place though. They then folded the flag neatly among them into a triangle, although nothing but the blue background showed—another thing to perhaps remedy someday.

"Til hægri . . . göngunni!" Roana called, as the honour guard then marched away to the right from the coffin, before she then dismissed the bearers and handed her sword to Tor, joining Marta and I.

The village and many cave dragons had now gathered around us, having had plenty of time to do so. Through her tears, for the first time Marta took in the humans and dragons who would be her tribe, her people now.

"It's something, isn't it?" I said to her.

"Yes," she sadly agreed, "it is."

"All of them care for you, Marta," I assured. "You're not alone here. You never have to be, unless that is what you choose. Ran chose that, even though he could have chosen differently—asking for help, even for a friend. We hope, I hope, that you will be able to do here what he couldn't . . . to choose differently, to be part of our circle, and to help close it once more."

Marta was able to tearfully nod.

"Everyone, Allir," I then said to the village in both English and Norse this time, as Roana began quietly explaining what was going to be happening on Marta's other side. "You have heard me talk about and pay honour to Ran as I left. Þú hefur heyrt mig tala um og greita heitur at Ran sem ek fór. So let me talk about the future, rather than the past now. Svo láta mig tala um framtítina, frekar en fortítinni nú. This is his mate, Marta. Þetta er félagi hans, Marta," I gestured with a hand towards her. "She is now one of us—a healer, as he was. Hún er nú einn af okkur—heilari, sem at hann var. But she needs healing from her loss of Ran, as much as she can offer healing to us. En hún þarf lækningu frá tap hennar Ran, eins mikit og hún getur botit lækningu okkur. So let us do for Marta what we perhaps wish at times we had done for Ran. Svo skulum vit gera fyrir Marta þat sem vit viljum kannski stundum vit höftum gert fyrir Ran. We owe him that. Vit eigum hann sem," I concluded as I simply stepped to the side.

"Next, as Substance leads us humming in prayer," I then heard Roana quietly say to Marta, "a few other dragons are going to step forward and send Ran's body to Spirit."

"M-May I touch and pray at it first, one last time?" Marta haltingly requested.

"Yes, of course," my mate responded. "Do you want any of us to go with you?"

"No, this is for me, and him," Marta replied.

Clutching Ran's copy of the Journal, she then stepped forward and knelt at the side of his coffin, stroking its polished wooden lid as she almost embraced it. It was painful to watch—quiet grief, at its most raw.

After allowing her a moment, Roana then nodded at me, and we both stepped forward to help her.

"It's time, Marta," my mate gently said as we helped Marta back to her feet, ushering her off to the side.

"He . . ." Marta couldn't finish her sentence.

"Substance," I said, giving her a cue, even though she could have likely just picked it up from me. My dragon then raised her head and began humming.

As the village all joined in humming in prayer, one of the honour guard then presented the folded Berk standard to Marta. She took it, silently, embracing it to her chest along with Ran's Journal, as Rökkr and two Nadders then stepped forward around Ran's bared coffin and breathed fire at it.

Marta had now stiffened herself, and was watching the intense fire with us. As the dragons' flames did their work, memories of Ran flashed through my mind, almost seeming like flames themselves above his burning coffin as I looked at it.

"Our old funerary form calls for us to face skyward," I said to Marta though, "and hum in harmony, even roar, for that is where the one we love is going. He is not on the ground anymore." The dragons' flames now ceased. "See?" I noted. "There is just ash—ash that we give to the winds to take."

Roana was giving me a subtle, nodding smile as we now stepped forward again with Marta to cast the first of her mate's ashes to the wind and waves.

"Pick up a handful like this," Roana invited, demonstrating, "and let it go, along with him."

Marta scooped up a portion of the rapidly cooling white ash now in her hands, while I now did as well—the three of us then gently tossing our handfuls of ash into the air as they floated out over the sea beyond.

"I feel peace," Marta now sniffed. "I can let him go."

"He will also stay with you, through the ash on your hands," Roana gently said however, "fading slowly, as the ash does. But he will never go away completely—never, Marta."

"Your people and vays," our new friend sadly admired, " . . . they are already vonderful to me. So vise."

"Let's go home now," my mate invited. "We have food and simple company waiting for you."

"And listening, for as long as you want," I added. "No schedules here, no shoulds or musts."

— — — — —

Soon, both we and our dragons were ushering Marta into our home for the first time.

"Welcomme . . ." a deep voice said behind Marta, startling her.

"What was that?" she said, spinning around but only seeing a large Night Fury directly behind her.

"Me . . ." Substance replied.

"You talk!" our new arrival exclaimed.

"Few of us talk in your languages, yes. Two so far," my black Night Fury replied.

"Your eyes . . ." Marta noted, the physician in her missing nothing.

"Yes, I blind," Substance answered. "Lost sight to Soviet gunfire in battle to retake island last summer. Protect Lannce, my rider and companion, with my head and eyes as we flew down in attack."

I just knelt down beside Substance's head, extending an arm around her neck.

"Substance and I are an example you will see here of how dragon and human bond together," I explained. "This bond, this interdependence of two species—two intelligent species—is at the heart of who we are. In a way, I am as handicapped here as Substance is though, because I cannot speak or understand Dragon and its differing dialects among the breeds. It is a complex, subtle grunted language that has no written form—one that we humans essentially have to learn from childhood, even infancy, if we are to learn and speak it at all. So Substance has learned to speak English for me.

"But she is our Guardian of Memories," I continued, glancing at my dragon, "our spiritual leader and senior elder."

"Lannce chief," Substance interjected. "I just remind, keep him in line, as he say."

"This house . . . it is just one big room," Marta noted though, looking around, "like a cabin, even an African hut."

"It's the way we live," I said. "I had to get used to some things, too, but the dragons live with far less privacy than even this—all together, in a large series of caves at the east end of the valley. You can sleep behind the screen over there. I once did, with Roana, but not for long. Roana and I sleep on this bedding in front, with our three Night Furies, and Tana sleeps with her two-headed Zippleback dragon on the right side there. There is also an enclosed latrine off that side as well. But otherwise sinks are buckets, stoves are fires, and Roana is my mirror."

"Vell," Marta now sighed, "I have been comfortable living in the bush, so this vill not be much different."

"We're not on the Outside anymore," Roana now suggested, "so let's get changed out of these fine clothes. I'll loan you some of my village clothes for now, since you're close to my size, and then let's have a simple dinner and start relaxing."

"I von't be alone?" Marta asked.

"That's not the way we live here," my mate assured with a gentle smile. "It was the way Ran chose to, but that is one reason why he left. We are a community, or as Substance reminds us, even a circle. Loneliness, no one to listen, no time to talk . . . they are all rare things here."

Marta now just smiled as well while Roana ushered her towards the screened spare bed to change.

"Uh, sir," Oleg now said behind me, "might I have your suit . . . and a lift home?"

"Don't want to stay for dinner?" I invited.

"My daughter is only an infant once," he said, "and my wife has been coping alone for basically four days now. With your tribal love of home and family, I'd prefer to enjoy mine with me here as well, another time."

"Substance," I said as I undid my tie, "care to make a flight to the Outside?"

Looking at Substance's clouded eyes, Oleg raised both eyebrows this time however.

— — — — —

Soon, I was in my familiar village garb and flying jacket once more, shuttling Oleg on Substance as my black garment bag, once again containing all my Outsider clothes, along with Oleg's own thicker garment bag, were all strapped down behind Substance's saddle.

"Want a 'home delivery' instead?" I offered, seeing it was almost dark now, and that we could probably fly well beyond the lifeboat station ahead of us without being sighted.

"You must not be overconfident or presumptuous, sir," Oleg warned behind me. "We Guardians still have much to keep concealed. I live in an ordinary house, on the edge of a town, with a yard."

"High back fence?" I asked.

"Yes," he grudgingly admitted. "Our dog can jump."

"Can't meet and thank the wife?" I wondered.

Oleg just gave me a stern glare, as Substance flew us right over the station.

"Too late," I quipped. "It's tough to turn this dragon around now that she's blind. So tell me which way your house is—or my dragon can pick it from your mind."

"That way," he sighed. Substance was already gently banking to the left over a forest as Oleg was pointing, forcing him to realign his finger to where my dragon was now taking us.

"Will I have to jump, sir?" Oleg then asked.

"She and I fly together," I gestured between our heads, "mind to mind. She does most of the general flying, while I take charge during precision flying and landings. It works . . . you'll see."

Substance continued to fly us at a fairly low level over the now dark countryside with its occasional farms and other houses. If anyone got a glimpse of us in the dark, it wouldn't be for more than a second as we were not high enough to be visually tracked across the sky. Before long, the three of us were approaching a small town. Substance banked again towards the left and then slightly right, skirting around its edge, before slowing us in the air as we came towards one house with a high wooden fence around its back yard.

"She is making changes before I can say anything," Oleg remarked with amazement.

"Substance has tapped your mind," I replied, "making adjustments by the reactions that are already occurring inside your brain. She learned to do that with me."

I then focused on the centre of Oleg's back lawn amid their fenced yard as sure enough, his dog began barking furiously before disappearing under their back deck in fright, while Substance and I then executed a smooth landing in that yard.

"Oleg?" his wife exclaimed as she emerged through the sliding glass rear door off their family room, switching on the yard floodlights.

"Slå av lyset!" Oleg quickly said, telling her to turn them off again, as his wife quickly switched them off, clearly seeing why.

"Next time, sir, the lifeboat station, please," Oleg basically directed me.

I just shrugged as Oleg's wife brought their infant daughter outside again.

Oleg and his wife then started furiously talking back and forth in modern Norwegian, with her probably scolding him for coming all the way home on a dragon, while he was likely defending that it wasn't his idea.

Substance basically confirmed my hypothesis when she quietly but sharply barked, "Sorry!" getting their attention as they stood debating near us in the yard.

"My fault," I echoed. "Hi," I then introduced myself to Oleg's wife, "I'm Lance Hyse, Chief Ýsa of Berk."

"You . . ." she then said, likely recognizing first my name, and then my face on TV. She then rushed towards me, still balancing her baby girl with her left arm while vigorously taking and shaking my right hand. Oleg watched us with a bemused smile as he unfastened and removed the luggage Substance was carrying on her back.

"Sorry . . . so sorry," his wife said with a Norwegian accent.

"No problem," I assured with a smile. "Your husband does his job very well. It was me who insisted on bringing him home . . . a test of flying on the Outside, maybe even celebrating our revealed identity and greater freedom."

Oleg's wife was now breaking down in tears, still holding her baby with her left arm as she kept vigorously shaking my right hand with the other while I remained seated in Substance's saddle.

"And you wanted me not to see this gratitude of our people?" I asked my Guardian as he finished setting the luggage off to the side.

"Please just be careful, sir," he urged, betraying a smile though.

"Y-You . . . vant drink?" his still incredulous wife then asked us.

"Substance?" I invited, looking down at her.

"Cider, please," my blind dragon said.

— — — — —

While agreeing with Oleg that it was not a time to be inviting neighbours or friends over, I still briefly discussed looking at changing some protocols and developing dragon 'meet and greet' opportunities for more Outside Berkers with him over a glass of apple juice as Substance consumed four large two-litre bottles of it in a red plastic bucket.

"Also," I finished as I was remounting Substance's saddle before long, "let's see if we can get dress uniforms for our Outside Guardians that are approaching those of the HMKG."

"We are a clandestine service, sir," Oleg cautioned. "We're not supposed to be noticed, certainly not parading down a street."

"So no parade in Wønur then?" I wondered.

"Go home, sir," Oleg told me with a smile.

_Substance, up!_ I thought while crouching on her saddle as she vaulted both of us up into the night sky.

With it being dark and cloudy, I let her know we could fly higher against the bottoms of the clouds, allowing me a better view of the villages and countryside before we flew over the lifeboat station again, and across the sound to our own island.

It was funny, I mused to myself as Substance and I rose over our island mountains once more, with me mentally keeping us safely above the snowy treetops beneath us. Even though I had been flying in greater comfort and warmth inside helicopters and jets again, I actually preferred travelling by dragon now. Our family—our whole family—would be visiting my cousin's farm this summer, I decided. I could sense Substance shifting her head and perhaps smiling at me in agreement as we descended into our valley.

Before long, we were back on the ground in our village. Substance and I then re-entered our house to find Tana and Tvö Höffut resting in their bedding, with Rökkr and Spring lounging on our family's bedding at the front. I noticed that Ran's medal, his sheathed sword and folded flag were all now displayed though, hung on a wall near the front door.

"Where's Roana and Marta?" I wondered, just as the front door reopened behind Substance and I, with Marta and my mate entering almost arm-in-arm.

"You're finally home," my mate greeted me.

"Where were you?" I wondered.

"Giving Marta a first walk around the village . . ." she replied.

" . . . And Roana a decent pre-natal exam," Marta added. "I insisted vhen she told me no one else had given her one yet, apart from her pregnancy diagnosis in Germany."

"She's my doctor now," Roana smiled. "You had dinner out there at the station? You were gone long enough," she then queried.

"Nope, Substance and I were just given apple cider," I replied.

"Apple cider?" my mate queried.

"Substance and I took Oleg all the way home," I replied, before then wondering if I should have added that last detail.

"Lance . . ." Roana now sighed, shaking her head, "you're becoming as bad as Substance. Oleg should have stopped you."

"He tried," I noted. "But we took precautions—flying low during the last of twilight, and then up against the clouds in darkness on the way back. I just think it's time that our 'myths' appeared on the Outside a little more often again—at least at night. It's time we started asserting our freedom. Besides, it's not like it hasn't been done before. You've even told me Spring's father was killed colliding with power lines out there while hunting for deer."

"And it caused our Outside Berkers a lot of work to keep it all covered up," my mate shot back.

I could see I wasn't going to win this argument for now, and I didn't want a rare disagreement to mar our return home anyway, so I just dropped it as I looked away.

"Stew's in the cauldron there, along with a smaller one of mead tea," my mate said with a glance toward the main fire as she ushered Marta off to settle beside Rökkr. "You know where the bowls, mugs and buckets are," she added.

"Self-service . . ." I muttered to myself with a raised eyebrow.

Substance then nudged me.

"What?" I said to her with more than a little annoyance now at the seeming sudden withdrawal of service, pampering and T.L.C. that I had been used to, even at home in the past.

"Things not as they seem . . ." my dragon indirectly advised to me as quietly as possible.

I glanced at Roana, who was encouraging Marta to sit down against Rökkr again, connecting the dots.

"So what do I do?" I crouching down and asking my dragon in a whisper. "I can't exactly hang out in another room. Should we go for a walk or something?"

"I help," Substance quietly assured. "After eating."

I sighed, rising to my feet and then serving myself and Substance a stew dinner with mead tea. With Tana uncharacteristically just lounging or sleeping against her dragon, I wondered if she wasn't feeling well either. But I just let it all lie. It was a night and day difference from recent life in Oslo though in more ways than one. I was already missing Oleg and his stellar service.

Roana and Marta continued quietly conversing in Bokmål against a dozing Rökkr while Substance and I ate our dinners over beside the main fire, as Spring decided to enjoy an extra helping of stew in a bucket with us. I just felt mildly irritated and edgy, even ignored though, as I ate. I knew Roana was doing a good thing, and I knew that yes, I was even spoiled . . . in part. But the atmosphere, even between her and I, had seemed to change now. No warm settling in, no prospect of relaxation or romance. Just sleep ahead, and then back to work in the morning.

"Patience, Lannce," my dragon quietly advised me. "Please clean as I begin work.

"Marta, I speak with you," she then said more loudly, turning towards our new house guest, as I had to hurriedly move out of Substance's way before collecting up my plate and mug, along with the dragons' buckets for washing. "Roanna," my dragon added, "Lannce wannt to speak with you as well."

So Substance and Roana basically switched places as my mate now came to me while I began washing up in the cooking area.

"What is it?" she asked.

Figuring Substance was doing me a favour and giving me a chance, I just spoke honestly.

"It's a big switch tonight," I sighed looking at the primeval dinnerware in the wooden washtub in front of me on top of a low wooden table, "missing Oleg, all the service . . . even us."

Roana now softened, embracing me from the side as I washed the buckets and dishes. "I'm sorry," she gently said.

"Me, too," I agreed, just turning to embrace her with wet, soapy arms as I kissed her forehead.

"Marta's just been sucking it all in this evening," she quietly sighed, "even trying to smile and joke. She gave me a real exam, too.

"The baby and I are fine," my mate preemptively assured, giving me a kiss. "She says I should be getting more calcium in me though, especially during pregnancy."

"You along with the dragons, eh?" I wondered, now toweling my arms dry with a sheepskin.

"Yep," she replied more normally. "Marta even thinks it might be endemic to our diet here . . . little dairy, just from our goats, among other things. She told me to eat more goat cheese for one."

"And you should plant more dark leaf greens in your fields—collard greens, kale—plus soy and herbs," Marta now chimed in from our bedding. "Feed it to the dragons, as vell. The seaveed Roana says they eat along vith the fish is helpful though."

"Thanks, Marta," I accepted. "We can tell the FSK to bring in those seeds. Maybe you could help me give them a list. But how are you doing?" I then asked, walking with an arm around Roana to join Marta, Substance, Rökkr and Spring on our bedding.

"Fine," Marta said, her jaw somehow stiffening though. "But can ve get more equipment for the clinic?" she then requested, abruptly changing the subject. "I vould like—"

"You and I kindred spirits, Marta," Substance then interjected.

"How?" Marta now wondered, turning to her.

"Lost great love," my dragon replied. "My previous rider and companion . . . Amund. He not dragon, he small in body, even for human . . . but his mind," Substance began, seeming to go to a place inside herself even I hadn't seen her go, " . . . hard to describe. No one like him since. He read to me—_Book of World Quotations_, on shelf nearby, as well as Journal, so much more. His thoughts—we dragons sense minds—his thoughts so many, so broad, so deep. Change my life, teach me love of learning, knowledge.

"We fly together," Substance continued. "Train, become Dragon and Rider, even Guardian and Knight. Protect our people. I love him. I not want dragon mate, he not want human mate. We, two of us, enough . . . perfect.

"Then, one night on patrol, lightning strike through us in air to trees below," she said. "We stunned, fall. Falling through trees awakes me. I hear Amund cry out near me, then go silent. I force myself back into air, flying, searching for him. I find him . . . impaled on tree branch. It stick through him, his face frozen in pain, shock."

Substance paused, shutting her vacant eyes. "I pull his body up, off tree, carry him back to village in air . . . that face, but not him, looking at me in silent yell whole time. Get back on ground. Human villagers finally close his eyes and mouth for me."

I wanted to stop Substance now, to ease and re-close that painful wound inside her . . . but I could see why she was reopening it with Marta.

"I burn his body myself," she continued, "alone, in front of village before I allow myself to think . . . before I not able to. I bury all feelings . . . but they come out. I get unpleasant, difficult, angry. I live away from village, from humans, even other dragons . . . on other island for time. I. Want. To. Die," she slowly emphasized. "Die," she repeated. "When dragon loses companion or mate . . . it can feel like death to us. One of us, Altaff, do just that, hundred years ago, against cliff. I not so lucky. Dragons and Riders, and Dragon Guardians watch over me, stop me four times in flight before I give up. Tried starving self, too. But when I weak, they feed me . . . both humans and dragons.

"I most difficult dragon in tribe though for a while—rebellious, alienated," she said, gently shaking her head, " . . . all because I not let feelings out. But they come out anyway.

"Do not be like me, Marta," Substance warned, tears flowing from her closed eyes, " . . . not like me . . ."

Marta now moved towards Substance's head, embracing it, beginning to moan as she did. Substance now moaned in anguish as well, her own deep wound now reopened in full. Rökkr, Roana, Spring, myself, even Tana and Tvö Höffut . . . all the rest of us now gathered around the two of them, nudging, embracing, crying.

— — — — —

Marta slept that night, in our circle, as we all settled around Substance and her. Roana and I modified our usual ways a little, sleeping in two of my opened leather vests against one another, along with two of the pyjama pants that Roana and Tana had variously made for me over time.

"I am so weak, and scared . . . when it comes to you," my mate softly whispered in my ear, "especially after hearing all this."

"Death," I whispered back to her, "you're not welcome here—not in between Roana and I. So just go away. Scat! Shoo!"

That made Roana chuckle. She then kissed my neck and my ear, before finding her way to my mouth as I parted our vests, reaching underneath her vest and rubbing the skin of her back firmly. But both my mate and I knew we couldn't do much more than that with Marta and Tana resting right next to us, so she then resettled herself against me.

"It'll be okay," I whispered as I held her tightly though, " . . . promise."

Roana slept very well against me, as did I.

The next morning, both Marta and Substance, and the rest of our household were already gone when I awoke.

"Morning . . . lover," Roana sighed, having stripped herself deliciously bare, pregnancy and all, as she resettled herself into our bedding beside me after setting a mug of morning tea down on a low wall shelf near us.

"Where'd everybody go?" I wondered.

"Out," she simply replied.

"Did I sleep 'til noon here?" I sighed.

"No," she answered. "I just quietly hinted to everyone this morning that you've been working pretty hard on the Outside these last few days. So Substance and Marta are going on Marta's first medical rounds while Substance pays pastoral calls as well, guiding each other around as they share more. Tana and Tvö Höffut are planting up in the fields, and Rökkr took Spring on Guardian duty with him.

"So guess what?" she said, trailing a finger down my chest within my opened vest. "You, my sir, get a vacation today . . . with me. Whatever you'd like to do, even waited on hand and foot . . . all compliments of your mate and fiancée. So surprise back."

I just took Roana and kissed her . . .

— — — — —

That wound up lasting the whole day. I was bathed, massaged, shaved—although being back in the village, I didn't need to worry about shaving daily anymore. I was even seduced and made love to . . . very slowly.

It. Was. Fabulous.

Roana and I were feeding one another an early dinner of roast mutton and vegetables when everyone else returned, almost seemingly on cue. But with dragons and what they could sense, that didn't surprise me.

Marta was surprised though. "Oh, I am sorry," she said, almost turning around to leave again upon seeing Roana and I unclothed under the quilts as we warmly shared our dinner.

"This is tribal living, Marta," Roana advised.

"I did see it in the bush," our new housemate admitted, "but did not expect it in Norvay."

"Technically, you're not in Norway here," I noted, finishing a mouthful.

"Marta . . ." Roana then said with some hesitancy, "I only have a couple months before I get busy as a mother. Honestly, I know how I would feel in your situation . . . but Lance and I love each other. I once told him it wasn't necessary—we mostly just commit to one another without much ceremony here, apart from wedding feasts, which for us got postponed last year with the battle and everything else. But now that winter's over, this guy is spoiling me with a full engagement, and some kind of wedding surprise he's working on. So, I would like maybe to ask your permission to keep loving him, in this house, while you share it with us. It just feels awkward to me, which is why I'm asking."

"Roana . . ." Marta warmly said, kneeling before us, "you show me so much kindness. You velcome me into your home, your family. Seeing you and Lance together . . . it varms my heart. I need and treasure your company now. So it is I who vould like to ask your permission to remain in this house vith you, as you love each other. I just sleep elsevhere in here though, like Tana."

Roana now moved to embrace Marta.

"Keep being the vonderful inspiration you two are," Marta encouraged.

"I keep Marta company," Substance now volunteered to my surprise. "Marta, take _Book of World Quotations_, and let's read tonight, at bed in far end, after dinner."

"Lance and I have cooked a roast and vegetables for everyone," my mate said.

"Perfect," Marta smiled. "Substance, would you like some?" she said, turning to my dragon companion.

"No, raw fish, please," Substance replied.

"I'll get it for you," Marta volunteered before I could.

"Relax," Roana quietly encouraged me, seeing and feeling me about to get up but then stopping.

"It's just the companion in me," I sighed.

"Our circle has expanded by one for now," my mate quietly said to me. "Let Marta share in the duties and joys here, too."

I watched as Marta and Substance continued to talk while Marta quickly got them both dinner, then settling by the fire to enjoy it as Roana just had me relax against her in our bedding as she cradled and massaged me some more from behind.

I felt torn though, unsettled. But I could see Substance's company was doing Marta a world of good, giving her something new to focus on, while both healed deep wounds inside each of them.

I looked up at Roana, allowing my uncertainty to show. My mate just calmly, warmly returned my gaze as she held and rubbed me. I then closed my eyes, relaxing fully against what Roana was giving and surrounding me with, deciding that would be enough, more than enough, for now.

While Rökkr and Spring slept beside us as usual that night, I missed Substance's presence, even though her being with Marta meant Roana and I were free to sleep unclothed in our bedding together as usual.

"You worry too much," my mate whispered, noting my left hand was still unconsciously tracing up and down her back. "You're sleeping against my shoulder tonight," she then decided, rolling from her side onto her back and moving up slightly as she brought me to rest against her instead. Roana then gently cradled and rocked me against herself, soothing me right to sleep.

— — — — —

The next morning though, Substance and Marta were gone again when I awoke . . . and the day after that as well.

I emerged from our house that third morning to even see the two of them flying together over our village and out over the sea stacks and ocean.

"Substance is teaching Marta to fly with her," my mate noted, coming up next to me.

"Obviously," I sighed. "As long as she can tap into a sighted mind, and tell them what to do . . . I guess she can fly with anyone now."

"What's the matter?" Roana asked, taking my arm and rubbing my back.

"Well, I know Substance is helping," I said, "but I'm feeling a little neglected here . . . not by you of course."

"Glad you corrected that," my mate wisecracked, before smiling and drawing closer against me. "But you know Substance . . . how she goes off on causes and new initiatives sometimes."

Rökkr joined us out on our porch, watching the two of them fly as well, as he then grunted.

"He is offering to go get her, even have a talk with her," my mate translated.

"No," I decided. "Marta needs this healing . . . and I guess I'm maybe not such a soulmate to Substance, as my great love hasn't died on me . . . I won't let her, either," I said, putting an arm around Roana. "It's time I got back to the lab anyway."

"Lance . . ." my mate empathised as I now moved away and down the porch steps.

"Just leave them be, please," I said. "I need to put in some serious, uninterrupted lab time with these next enzyme cultures anyway. Could you bring lunch and dinner to me? I'd really appreciate it," I said, walking across the commons now.

— — — — —

Somehow, things basically went on this way for a week. I think the longer it went on, the more difficult it likely became for Substance to acknowledge or confront the issue—and I just didn't want to.

Between Roana and I, it just became, "Lance . . ." from her and, "No," right back from me. I was making progress on developing the enzyme treatments though that would help the dragons absorb more calcium from their diets, as well as now having time to review literature on inbreeding—both my own writings, and those of others—Melanie having sent the contents of my old home office to me from Houston at my messaged request, with boxes of these materials having arrived while Roana and I had been away in Oslo.

Through it all, I was hardly seeing Substance now, except at nights when she would curl up with Marta, the two of them perusing and discussing Amund's _Book of World Quotations_ together. That had been something I knew I should have been doing with my dragon companion, but running the village and now working in the lab again—my interests, reading, and time were by necessity more narrowly concentrated. I knew I hadn't been quite an Amund to her anyway. Marta was scholarly, very intelligent, and had lost a great love. I wasn't able, or about to compete with that.

It was taking a toll on me, but I steadfastly refused to allow either Roana or Rökkr to intervene with Substance. "If you love me," I had told each of them, "I ask you to even put it out of your minds. Do not tell her, do not let her know. Marta is doing well among us now, and Substance is finding further healing, too. I don't want any of that to change."

Through Roana, Rökkr would remind me of noble ideals like, "'The bond of companions cannot be broken.'"

"Things change, Rökkr," I'd usually reply in such cases. "I want Substance to be free, unhindered. We're still elders together . . . it'll work."

I still had Roana to love deeply, and I had her surprise to get back to work on anyway.

— — — — —

"Sir," Tor said, finding me in the bunker one morning, "message for you."

"Thank you, Tor," I replied, seated at a counter and looking up from my microscope. "Is it Gerhard Pharma, with their confirmation of my latest enzyme tests?"

"No, sir," he said, passing what looked like a folded telex. "It is from the palace in Oslo. Roana has not seen it, as you requested."

"Thanks, Tor," I said, accepting the telex from him and opening it as he turned to leave. "You read it?" I asked.

"No, sir, it was for you, and marked classified," he replied. "We avert our eyes after that in such cases."

"Stick around for a second," I requested as I started reading it.

_Lance,_ the telex began, after the formal preliminaries, _your initial idea unfeasible. Norwegian Navy cannot accommodate._

Now I was bummed, not wanting to read the rest of it.

"Bad news, sir?" our FSK Exec wondered, seeing my expression.

"'Fraid so," I sighed, looking up from the telex.

"Strange," he replied however. "Our radioman did have to read some of the lines as he tore off and separated each of the sheets of that telex. He seemed quite positive . . . but of course, he could not tell me why."

So, I resumed reading the message . . .

_Enquiries through NATO have proven positive however, _the next paragraph read._ U.S. Navy willing to loan sufficient capacity. Joint cover exercise agreed to._

_Therefore please review proposed Operation Dragon Respect, attached. Awaiting your concurrence and response._

_Do not disappoint._

— _H.M._

I then flipped through the rest of the pages of the telex, saying, "Oh my God . . ." as I did.

"Sir?" our XO then wondered, still poised to leave at the doorway to the bunker.

"Tor," I said, looking up from the sheets, "I hereby authorize you to read this—but do not tell or show this to Roana . . . not yet anyway. Further, I want you to begin crafting an appropriate logistics plan. Take a copy of this to Chief O'Connell up at the dragon caves, and tell him he is officially back on duty with us as of this moment, and is to help you plan the logistics, as he knows the U.S. Navy and what they are offering here. Transmit this to the Baroness as well, with a request for a census of Outside Berkers with naval or maritime experience—with a response requested A.S.A.P.

"And finally," I said, "reply to the sender of this telex . . . mark it 'Secret' . . . 'We concur and accept, pending tally and assessment of experienced personnel within Barony. Deep thanks.' Make it from 'C.Y.'"

"Should I be getting excited, or nervous, sir?" Tor now wondered, accepting the papers back from me.

"Excited," I calmly said.


	44. Chapter 44

_Okay,_ I was silently coaching myself out on the village commons a short time after dismissing Tor, unable to spend a minute longer at work in the lab _. . . secrecy mode. Just keep it under wraps like you have with Lazarus all this time. No big deal._

The other half of me though wanted to run to Roana and just blurt it all out to her, every last detail.

But this was her surprise . . . hers and our nation's.

So, I invoked my Zen, or perhaps now 'Dragon' mode—calming myself even though my feet felt like they were walking a mile a minute. I was embracing normality, even serenity . . . just very tightly.

"Lance," Marta now greeted me on the commons coming to me from the side, surprisingly without Substance this time.

"Hi, Marta," I said casually, resisting the urge to tell her anything related to my initiative. "What's up?"

"Vell, Substance is up in the fields, teaching her class once more," our new village physician replied, " . . . with some new ideas she and I have been discussing together. I used to teach village children a little in Africa at times."

"Oh . . ." I said, now feeling a little further deflated at this additional commonality between them.

"I'm actually going to take on some teaching duties vith her," Marta continued brightly, " . . . once I learn the lay of your land, as vell as your tribe's dialect, culture and values a little better. It vill be fun. I'm looking forward to it."

"Good . . ." I tried to casually reply, having once harboured ideas of perhaps teaching beside Substance myself.

A doorway now really seemed to be closing between my dragon companion and I, and I couldn't help beginning to mourn its loss . . . all the things I could have done with her that Marta was now seeming to do. But I loved Substance enough to want to keep letting her go her own way. I would manage, and soon, I would have a human child, as well as a mate and dragon son to love.

"You alright?" Marta perceptively asked.

"I'm _fine_," I assured, with perhaps a little too much emphasis.

"You know," she said, "as one who is an expert at masking feelings, who vas married to an even better expert . . . vell, let's say I can be a counsellor, even perhaps the village psychologist. I did minor in that at university, figuring it vould give me a better bedside manner. So, is there anything you vould like to talk about? Honestly?"

"Well . . ." I hedged, just about to let it out, when . . .

_Whoosh!_ I found myself grabbed off the ground by my left shoulder and being flown away out of the village, clutched tightly by a large black, talonned paw.

"Substance?" I wondered, figuring she would be the only dragon to do that to me.

But while this Night Fury was wearing both a saddle and leather strap of office, it peered its head down at me with clear eyes.

"Rökkr!" I almost scolded him. "What's the big idea?! I was about to open up and actually maybe have a meaningful conversation about Substance with Marta. I thought you'd want that."

"Roww-annnna," he replied to me in his slow, thick dragon accent, facing forward again.

"Roana? What's wrong? Where is she? Is she hurt?" I asked in rapid-fire succession as I now looked with concern around us.

"Nnno," he replied. "Yyouu sseee . . ."

"Thanks for speaking English," I sighed, now trying to relax and enjoy the ride, wherever he was intent on taking me as we spiralled upwards from our valley against the island's southern mountains.

"Hhh-hhh-elllllc-commme," he tried to say.

"Still having problems with the Double-U's, I see. It's 'Whuh', as in 'Wel-come'," I clearly pronounced.

"Laterrrr," he replied as we reached the top of the mountains.

He then set me down on the bare, half-snowy, half-grassy summit of one mountain. A small, green Outsider nylon tent held up by aluminium arches was a little ways along a ridge down slightly to the east, almost sheltering behind the summit from the stiff westerly ocean breezes. The smoke of small campfire was beyond the tent.

"Hey! Where you going?" I said as Rökkr then took off into a dive down beside the steep mountain face, back towards our valley and village.

So, left essentially in the middle of nowhere on our island, it was either a very precipitous climb back down from the mountain peak I now found myself on . . . or checking out this campsite.

I chose the campsite.

Soon, I was reaching the tent, and finding a relieving, if somewhat surprising, sight.

"Roana," I said, seeing her sitting cross-legged just beyond the tent with her back to me. She was wearing one of her attractive Berker fleece-lined winter sheepskin coats with the hood down, her blonde hair gathered at the back in a single braid, as she tended a small iron pot suspended from a wooden frame above the campfire.

"Good," she replied without turning her head, "Rökkr delivered you."

"What's going on?" I wondered.

"Just a surprise, from me," she said as I sat down beside her. "Way I figure it, I've got little time left before I become a mother, or before you spring your surprise . . . so I'm just taking advantage of the chances I have. I was thinking about treating you to an overnight away in Wønur or someplace, but I think we'll get more privacy staying on our island, don't you?"

"I think you're right," I agreed. "So, what's for dinner this time?" I then wondered, seeing something different in the pot than what I was used to.

"Creamy clam chowder," she said, "with extra cream, and vegetables—even a little kale in there—just out of season, thanks to the FSK. But more calcium for me, and good eatin' for both of us."

"Thank you," I warmly appreciated now, putting an arm around her from the side and giving her right cheek a kiss.

"Hope I wasn't taking you away from anything," she added.

"Nothing that can't keep," I said.

"What?" she wondered.

"I was finally encountering Marta alone on the commons," I decided to admit, "and she could almost tell I was troubled about something—in my case, Substance. Marta's very perceptive. She doesn't miss much."

"Unlike Ran," my mate said, "who seemed completely clueless."

"Ran probably noticed way more than he let on," I defended. "He just didn't know how to express or communicate it."

"You're probably right," my mate agreed. "Dinner's ready. Grab our one bowl. Tea's over there in a thermos, too," she gestured with a sideways nod of her head. "Just sorry it can't be mead tea for us right now."

"That's fine," I accepted. "I'm going to miss these times alone with you though," I added, grabbing what she had requested from behind us near the tent.

"Technically, we're not alone now," she said, laying a hand on her pregnant abdomen. "But we'll make it work. Substance will be a good dragon mom."

"If she's still with me," I cautioned.

"Something Marta tell you?" Roana asked as she ladled the steaming chowder into the one bowl we would share.

"Turns out Marta taught some school in Africa, along with everything else," I said with a sigh. "Another commonality with Substance . . . another nail in the coffin with me."

"Would you let Rökkr and I go to work with her now?" my mate asked. "It's affecting our family. Rökkr would nurture our child willingly, but I want Substance beside us, fully, in our family—not as co-dependent sisters with another recovering widow, even if they seem perfect for each other."

"You think that's what it is? Co-dependency?" I wondered as I poured us a mug of still hot tea now.

"I heard it called 'rebounding' at W.S.U. when I was there," Roana answered. "That was supposed to be about being dumped by boyfriends, but it's basically the same thing. You suffer a heartbreaking loss—or summon it back in Substance's case—you find what seems like or is a kindred spirit, and you go off with this other person, forgetting most every other friend, connection, tie, or promise you ever made for a while."

"Sounds like you have it pegged," I admitted as Roana fed me a first spoonful of chowder.

"How is it?" she asked.

"Like you," I said, " . . . perfect, with even a little sharp edge to it."

"It's the sharp cheese and some herbs I added in," she smiled. "The FSK platoon cook taught me how when I asked him about chowder and how to zing it up a bit. But . . ." she then said, giving me a brief kiss, sucking the excess chowder from my lips, "would you let your perfect mate keep our family close, and happy . . . for our child's sake?"

"Yeah, okay . . ." I relented, as I then went for seconds on the kiss.

The chowder was kind of forgotten about for a while after that.

— — — — —

"Mmmmmmm . . ." I sighed later, "I like your concept of 'dessert' here."

"Do 'ya now?" my mate smiled against me, bare-shouldered amid a veritable pile of quilts and sheepskins inside that small tent that we had practically cocooned ourselves in. "Is it better than chocolate? I can barely remember that. Maybe another thing to ask the FSK for now."

"Hmmm . . . tough choice," I briefly mused to Roana's seeming consternation. "Nope, it's not," I smiled. "You win, hands down." We kissed again as I savoured her just like fine chocolate.

Then we both heard a brief roar and grunt outside.

"Just when 'ya get comfy," I sighed, "there's a dragon outside, roaring at your tent."

"Go see what it wants," Roana grumbled. "It's probably Rökkr. Don't tell him I was dissin' him though."

Looking through a gap in our tent flap, "Yep, it's him," I confirmed. "Whatever it is, I'll probably need you to translate. Mind?"

"Just keep me covered up and warm," she sighed as we both now stirred ourselves from the exquisitely comfortable nest we had made.

"What is it, Rökkr?" I asked as we both just stuck our heads outside the tent amid the rapidly chilling evening air and winds, keeping the rest of ourselves wrapped with sheepskins as Roana's Night Fury began grunting his reply.

"He's saying that Chief O'Connell is urgently requesting to see you, now," she translated.

"Oh boy," I sighed, reaching back inside the tent for my tunic and other clothes.

"Rökkr," my mate then asked facing him, "what's this about?"

The black dragon then grunted while I hurriedly dressed in the tent.

"You can't tell me?" Roana then responded in surprise. "Why can't you tell me?"

Rökkr grunted again.

"Ask Lance, huh?" she replied to him while looking at me while I was wriggling into my rough cloth pants.

"Rökkr's never called Miles 'Chief' before, Lance. He's supposed to be captain of our guard, not chief," she then said to me. "What's this about?"

I glanced nervously at her, unsure what to say at the moment as I hurriedly put on my Berker leather boots.

"Ohhh . . . wait a minute," she then deduced. "You're having O'Connell be a Chief Petty Officer again? Lance . . ."

"Remember my proposal, back in the palace suite," I said, " . . . and what I asked?"

Roana now sighed, slumping down next to me amid the bedding in acceptance. "You said I'd figure the whole thing out, but that you asked me not to."

"Exactly," I replied, now putting my flying jacket on.

"So you're just gonna leave me up here? Alone?" she wondered.

"May I?" I winced. "Just for a few minutes, promise."

"Does this allow me to interrupt your surprise if something comes up?" she queried.

"Yes," I decided. "Yes it does. Love you," I finished, kissing her, before I crawled past her out of the tent, almost bounding onto Rökkr's saddle and saying, "Let's go."

"Don't let me get cold up here!" I heard Roana repeat behind me as she ducked back inside the tent.

_Voom!_ Rökkr and I were off like a shot down the side of that mountain, then soaring up the valley towards the dragon caves.

"Thanks for keeping confidences, buddy," I said gratefully to him as we flew.

Rökkr just snorted in an irritated way beneath me, the dragon equivalent of saying, 'Yeah, sure,' as he was soon landing us at the entrance to the caves.

I then leapt off him and practically ran, zigzagging among the many resting dragons inside the broad dragon cave towards the O'Connells' living area along the far side, seeing Miles and Tor conferring by the light of a few flaming torches, along with an FSK assistant. Ilsa and Garrison were lounging beside Miles, watching them all.

"Okay," I said, arriving practically breathless, "I'm interrupting a very important dinner date on a mountaintop that Roana is surprising me with, so quickly, what's the problem?"

"You're gonna need a bigger one, sir," Miles replied to me point blank. "What they've assigned us won't do the job."

"Are you sure?" I pressed.

"Trust me, sir," O'Connell responded. "I've planned and liaised on missions before, and I am telling you, what they're giving us will not work for what you want to do. It's simply not big enough."

"So what do you recommend?" I replied, folding my arms in irritation at the possibility of seeing my plans thwarted yet again.

"Have them give us the flagship of the covering task force," he said. "I know that class . . . it'll do."

"Miles, that's one of their modern, front line assets," I responded. "They were giving us an older one that wouldn't be missed as much in a temporary covert loan."

"If you want to fulfill the mission objectives as outlined here," my retired but still young U.S. Navy Chief maintained, holding up his copy of the telex with his one remaining hand, "ask for that flagship."

He and I seemed to stare each other down for a moment.

"Alright," I finally relented. "Tor, contact NATO Supreme Commander General Thorndyke in Brussels by telex, copy His Majesty, the Defence Ministry, Brigader Husa, _and_ the Baroness—and convey Chief O'Connell's request, along with his reasons for it. Mark it 'Secret', make it from me, and make it good, you two," I said, looking at both of them. "The necks of myself, the Baroness, and even Oslo are way out on this already."

"Yes, sir," both Miles and Tor replied.

"Now can I get back to one of the people all this is for?" I asked.

"Yes, sir," Miles replied again.

"Carry on," I sighed, as both of them saluted me with Tor rising to his feet and Miles sitting as upright as he could against Garrison, forcing me to salute in return. "And keep anything else until tomorrow morning . . . _when_ I'm back in the village, okay?"

"Yes, sir," they both repeated as I left them.

"Rökkr," I sighed as I reached him again and finally swung around, remounting his saddle inside the cave, "after this, I never want to plan even so much as a birthday party."

I could tell this dragon was rolling his eyes at me as we re-emerged through a cave entrance and flew off.

— — — — —

Soon, Rökkr was landing back on the top of the mountain ridge in front of the campsite. However, he took right off again before I had fully dismounted from his saddle, tipping me onto the hard ground—basically a dragon 'oops' he seemed to be doing on purpose.

"Rökkr!" I objected landing on my rear. But the black Night Fury had already pivoted in the air, disappearing back down the mountainside. I don't think he liked being an errand-boy.

I turned around amid the last fading remnants of twilight now to see the campfire out and the small, oblong tent zippered shut.

"I'm back," I said, kneeling down and proceeding to unzip the half-circled tent entrance.

"And I'm cooling off," came the reply.

"Hopefully not for good," I quipped, cautiously though.

"We'll see," the voice said, buried amid the bedding. "Get in here already."

So I launched myself in, feet first.

"Owww!" came a quick protest. "Hey, remember, there's a baby in here."

"Oops, sorry," I quickly apologized, shrinking off against the right side of the tent.

"Get in, and lay your clothes on top of us," the voice said. "I'm no longer sure if I brought enough bedding. Should have borrowed one of those high-tech sleeping bags from the FSK along with this tent of theirs."

"Gettin'," I said, hurriedly undressing and laying my clothes on top of where I presumed Roana was. Then I burrowed my feet in.

"One more layer down," she advised.

So I backed out and tried again, starting to get cold myself.

"There you are," I said, feeling an arm, and then a hip and a leg with my left foot.

"Everything okay?" I now heard Roana say, her still fairly warm breath tracing up my body the further I burrowed myself in.

"A modified request has been sent," I summarized. "Hi there," I then greeted, feeling her in front of me at last.

"Remind me not to do this alone again anytime outside of mid-summer," she said, nestling close against me.

"Sorry," I sighed, taking her into my arms in the pitch darkness that being wrapped among layers of quilts and sheepskins offered.

"You're here now," my mate replied. "That's all I really wanted. So . . . it's O'Connell as a navy chief again, convincing you to send out a modified request."

"Roana," I said, holding her and trying to warm us both up amid the admittedly thick coverings—it was getting that cold out amid the sharp ocean winds whistling across that mountain, "would you like me to tell you the whole thing? Cards on the table?"

"Well . . . what would you do?" she hesitantly asked me.

"Me? I'd let it ride, keep the game and the guessing going," I replied, "shake the Christmas present a little bit more."

"You shook your Christmas presents on the Outside?" she wondered as I could feel us both beginning to warm up now.

"When I was a kid, yeah," I said. "I had a good idea what some of them might be. Sometimes I was right, sometimes wrong. But it was always fun picking up the wrapped presents, the ones in boxes that is—I could tell when it was just books, or worse, socks, that were wrapped. But I'd weigh the boxes, shake them a bit, and enjoy guessing what was inside. That seemed to be more fun than actually opening them at times."

"Ohhh . . ." she said, almost in frustration now, "you think I should just ask you?"

"Tell you what," I offered, "if you want, you can order me to tell you everything, anytime from here on . . . and I will, because I want to love, honour, and obey my wife."

"Isn't that vow meant for wives?" she asked.

"Most husbands I've seen, even my old self, seemed to do things that way—including the 'obey' bit," I observed. "I think that's why Christian churchmen put that in the wedding vows and liturgies . . . to try and counterbalance, even reverse a seemingly inevitable fact of nature, and married life."

"Okay," she said, "I'm warm now, I'm good."

"Your orders, m'am?" I inquired as we remained nestled, even entwined together amid all that bedding.

"Carry on, my fiancée," she decided, " . . . with exactly what you're doing."

"Yes, m'am," I said, drawing her into a full-bodied kiss.

"Mmmmmmm," she sighed, "especially this . . ."

— — — — —

I was awakened the next morning not by Roana sliding out of our cocoon, but sliding back in.

"Welcome back," I yawned.

"You do not want to go out there," she replied, shivering and trying to re-warm herself against me. "It's raining, almost snowing . . . hard."

"Our FSK do provide weather forecasts now," I reminded.

"Yeah, yeah," she grudgingly acknowledged. "I just saw sunshine yesterday, a clear sky to the west, and went with it. My mistake."

"It was a good one," I replied, "even wonderful."

"Wanna stay in here?" she asked. "Just hibernate?"

"For how long?" I wondered.

"I dunno," she sighed, "'til it's nice again."

"No indoor latrines," I noted.

"You need to go?" she queried.

"Not right away," I answered, "but I will sometime."

"Sorry," she replied. "I owe you one for this . . . a make-up or do-over, okay?"

"No you don't," I warmly assured, " . . . but there is one thing though."

"What's that?" she asked.

"I want, more than anything," I decided, "for Substance to come back to me on her own. There's this old poem . . .

"'If you love something—or someone—let them go. If they come back to you, they're yours. If they don't, it was never meant to be.

"I love Substance, Roana," I said. "I love you, too . . . and having been through all I have, I would never force either of you to stay with me. I was in chains once—chains of my own making, my own sense of commitment and of right and wrong . . . and I would never, ever want either you or her to be in the kind of chains, even of your own making, that I was."

"I will stay with you," she breathed to me, "right at your side, until my dying breath, and far, far beyond . . . because that is what I want—just you, and just this."

"And I take thee to be my wedded wife," I said, kissing and embracing her, "to have and to hold, to love and to cherish, for better or worse, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, so long as we both shall live, here and far, far beyond . . ."

— — — — —

We stayed in that tent, amid the cold rain, that whole day, with me just avoiding eating or drinking much of anything to minimize any calls of nature. Even partially unzipping and peeking through the tent flap at times served to provide all the motivation I needed.

Finally near sunset, the weather cleared, and Roana and I re-emerged into our world that much more united in both body and spirit. Even her dragon showed up practically right on mental cue as we packed up our campsite.

"Rökkr," my mate said to him as he flew both us and our camping gear back off the mountain, "Lance has convinced me—we leave Substance be. She either learns a lesson, or her life changes course. We four with Spring, soon to be five, will deal with it, whatever comes. I know you and she are mates . . . what you two decide or do is your own affair. But Lance loves Substance," she now sniffed, "and it's up to Substance to decide if she feels the same way, the same commitment, okay?"

Rökkr grunted once, seemingly in agreement as we flew.

"But I love him all the more for the choice, the stand he's taken here," Roana continued, "and I hope you would support him, even help me care for him, as he misses his dragon companion."

"Sssspprrrinnng, Ayyye, sssuppporrrtt yyouu . . ." he strained to reply, "llllovvve, toooo."

"Thank you, buddy," I said, moved, reaching around Roana to pat one of his large black ears. "Thank you so much."

He then switched to grunting.

"He adds, 'Substance will see she is wrong,'" my mate conveyed.

"Don't push her," I cautioned.

"'If she leaves you,'" Roana continued in translation as Rökkr grunted, "'she should no longer be Guardian of Memories, or my mate. I could not love or respect a choice such as that.'"

"Now I'm bringing divorce to our tribe as well," I sighed. "Just call me, 'Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I am an Oppenheimer."

"Who's that?" Roana wondered as Rökkr now seemed to be prolonging our flight back to the village with a turn and swoop up the valley.

"The leader of the American team that invented the atomic bomb during World War Two," I explained. "He brought change our planet, trying to save it, but he came to regret it . . . just like I am with our tribe at times now."

"No, my love," Roana assured, turning to look at me, as she held a hand over mine at her waist, "you are not such a man. I swear."

"Rökkr, please drop me off at the bunker," I requested. "I need to check on the latest cultures for your kind there."

"Lance . . ." my mate said while our Night Fury dutifully turned us in the air back towards our village.

"You can't fix this for me," I replied. "Even I need to let things resolve themselves, both without and within. If Substance can't see what she should be . . . then she truly is blind."

"Come home to me tonight," Roana asked as Rökkr quietly landed us just outside the bunker's wooden doors. "Promise? Otherwise I'll camp in the bunker, too."

"I promise," I replied as I dismounted now, "and I love you, Roana, and our family. That will never change for me."

"Now that is Berker commitment," she said as we kissed one more time. "You are good, Lance, and you bring good things to us. I will remind you of that when you get home, in our bedding tonight. That's my promise."

"Thanks," I whispered, hugging Roana tightly while she remained in Rökkr's saddle, laying a grateful hand on his head as well, before I let them both go as we turned apart from each other.

"There isn't a latrine in the bunker, is there?" I then remembered out loud, stopping all three of us.

"Got one at home," Roana said, turning back toward me, "even reading material."

I couldn't help smiling now as she stretched out a hand towards me from ten feet away.

"Help you afterwards," she offered as a sweetener, "no matter what it is."

I was back in that saddle, embracing Roana and kissing her hard as Rökkr crossed the village commons to our house in a single long bound.

— — — — —

Things didn't change with Substance over the following days. She brushed past me now in the house, didn't really participate with the rest of us as an elder, and didn't fly me.

"Lessonns . . . People, dragonns to see . . ." became her excuses.

Substance wasn't even seeming to talk to Marta much anymore, mostly just sleeping off by herself in the far corner across from Marta's screened bed . . . when she was home at all. She was basically out now from early morning, even spending nights meditating out at the cliffs of the ceremonial area, hopefully praying for guidance or a way through. Our blind Guardian of Memories didn't seem to need guidance from the rest of us much either, perhaps having learned to tap into whatever dragon or human minds were around her at the moment for the physical references she needed.

I think Substance realized she was in a hell of her own making though—and from what she had shared of her past, it wasn't the first. Maybe it was a curse in her nature, a demon in life she had to overcome. But dragon pride, and not following one's own talk and advice likely just made it all worse. Whenever I encountered her now, she was already in conversation with another dragon or human in the village. It always seems easier to fix someone else than to fix ourselves. I just chose to pass by and not interrupt.

Marta had soon figured things out though, offering to intervene as well. But I dissuaded her with my 'Let it go' poem, too. This was between Substance and me.

A quiet sombreness, even a sadness, now pervaded our household. I prayed silently, and watched for opportunities to break the seeming glacier of guilt, regret, and alienation that had now accumulated between the two of us. Maybe I shouldn't have let it go on as long as it did—another regret for the pile. Deep down, I guess I always had been a lover, not a fighter . . . or a confronter.

It brought Roana and I even closer together though. A crying baby, changings, or midnight feedings? Bring them on, we now said. We'd do them all together. She and I even went back to doing our daily routines together, especially with her advancing pregnancy now.

"My fault," I'd quip, looking at her belly.

"And I enjoyed every second of it," she'd reply.

She'd smile as she began bringing me lunches in the lab. I'd smile right back as I eased her down onto our bedding and brought her dinner to share between us. Sure there were still a couple months of pregnancy to go, but it was feeling like the home stretch for us now.

About the only time we'd part is when Tor or another FSK had a message or update for me.

"Carry on, fiancée," she'd say at such times, inviting me to just come and get her when I was done. She soon started to make me hunt around the village for her afterwards though, ducking behind village houses, workshops, even the sheep and goat stables, with me saying, "Gotcha!" when I found her, both of us smiling and laughing.

Even the gods seemed to be smiling on my wild scheme now though, perhaps in compensation over Substance. The communiqués were positive, and things were somehow coming together, even when I had to be the one making it so . . .

"What is it, Tor?" I said as Roana kissed me goodbye for the moment again one midday.

"You're no longer wearing the bearskin," he noted initially, glancing at my shoulders. "Haven't seen it on you for some time now."

"It's spring, it's at least warm-_ish_, and I'm about ready to have that thing added to the archives," I replied, continuing to wear my much lighter Berker flying jacket instead, perhaps in readiness, even expectation of flying with Substance again, or at least a symbol to others that I hadn't given up flying with her yet. "People know who I am here by now without it," I continued. "But what do you have for me?"

"It's the Baronial skills census you asked for, sir," he sighed, passing me a new telex.

"Short?" I guessed without even looking it.

"Short," he confirmed.

We continued walking as I thought hard for a moment, wracking my brain.

"C.I.A.," I finally said.

"C.I.A., sir?" our XO queried.

"Yeah," I confirmed. "They have crews, and access to crews, who are all sworn to top secrecy for life. They ran a ship a few years ago—the _Glomar Explorer_, which was disguised as an oil exploration and drilling vessel while it clandestinely tried to recover a downed, nuclear-armed Soviet submarine in the Pacific for its code books and other secrets. I was briefly brought in to advise them on the physiological risks, as well as protections and countermeasures required to work in a possibly radiated environment within and around the sub. The media eventually blew cover on that one, but I think we could do better.

"Send a secret, no top-secret telex to 'Kaiju', that's spelled K-A-I-J-U, at C.I.A. Langley—he code-named himself for Godzilla monsters," I noted. "Tell him, 'Lazarus needs some of the boat class,' and give him what we are short of, along with the Operation Dragon Respect overview. Tell him it is cleared by Supreme Commander, NATO, and add that he's invited to come along. He'll even meet something close to his long-desired kind here, and it will be a blast . . . just not nuclear."

"You top security scientists are weird," Tor sighed.

"We'd go insane otherwise," I said soberly.

I guess the prospect of pulling off something that was at once amazing, meaningful, and fun was just proving to be too irresistible for anyone I contacted though. Kaiju resolved our problem in short order, as I knew he would, even replying . . .

_How come you never told me what you're living with?  
>Travel DEFINITELY being arranged this end.<em>

Uniting my own past with my present . . . it would just be another one of the side benefits, one of the joys now, with this project.

But Spring and Rökkr? Roana and I couldn't be tighter with them either. Together we were a close-knit family that Substance was still welcome in. Spring, bless him, even began bringing his soccer ball to the lab in the late afternoons before Tana would have supper ready at home.

"You need play," he'd say with the ball still in his mouth, emotionally moving me every time he did.

He would even try to help me with Substance, saying, "Hi, Mom," as we'd pass her while she would invariably be talking with another in the village, or out in the valley fields after her classes.

_Don't push it,_ I mentally cautioned him at first as we'd continue passing by with little or no acknowledgement from her.

"I'm not," he'd quietly assure me, both innocently and knowingly.

"Spring . . ." I finally said to him one afternoon, turning to kneel down before him amid the fields beyond the village, "I know you sense it from me, but I've wanted to say for a while now . . . I could not ask for a better son. No matter what happens with Substance, and whether you have a human sister or a brother soon, just keep doing what you're doing. Being who you are."

"I will, Dad," he said as we both nudged snouts, me with a couple tears in my eyes.

Simply playing Soccer became a real uniting bridge for our family as well when Rökkr joined Spring and I in the fields late another afternoon. We just kicked and caught the ball in a triangle among the three of us, with mighty Rökkr having to awkwardly learn how to handle it, missing the ball at first and taking pointers from Spring as the two of them would grunt back and forth in Dragon.

That triangle soon attracted the attention of others though, quickly growing into teams, even small tournaments of junior, adult and mixed groups with our new FSK families, who were already quite used to playing Soccer on the Outside . . . just not with dragons. But our newcomers agreed with me that having dragons play right alongside humans made the game far more interesting. Lifelong villagers who had never seen real Soccer became interested, too—even cave dragons were getting involved. Our tribe was being united through play like nothing I had ever seen or hoped for.

Nadders, agilely balanced on just their two legs, proved to be our most versatile dragon players—so long as the balls didn't come at them in their blind spots. Night Furies became the best goalies, and Zipplebacks, while not all that fast on the ground, became our precision kickers, keeping a good eye on both the ball and where they were aiming for. With two heads, how could they miss? Gronkles proved to be good defenders, sometimes by just standing over a ball until they could kick it to a nearby human or dragon teammate, and the small, knee-high Terrors just had their fun chasing after the black and white balls whenever one got near them, tripping a number of the rest of us in the process. The Nightmares though . . . they soon proved to be very good at inadvertently deflating balls with their long, sharp talons and teeth. Fortunately, Spring's ball was not one of them, but I now saw that it was kept for our family's use alone.

I never wanted to lose that ball.

Spring, Rökkr and I were often being invited to play on the field the tribe had soon set up . . . sometimes by both teams on the pitch. Roana, Tana and Tvö Höffut would cheer and roar us on from the sidelines, with Rökkr taking goal while Spring would be right beside me as a forward. The two of us developed a fairly good offensive style, with my dragon son able to read my every intention as we went, bouncing and passing the ball back and forth towards the opposing goal. I would usually set the ball up, trying to fake out the opposing defence men, gals, or dragons, before passing it to Spring who would shoot it at the goal with his head, legs or sometimes tail.

Soccer became simple fun for us, wonderfully simple fun in the lengthening evenings amid the busy routine of spring and summer chores and work our tribe was resuming. But playing just with Spring, or in a triangle with Rökkr . . . those times still meant the most to me, even when I was wishing Substance would join in, too.

I found myself even praying to the ancient Norse gods about her though—any deity that would listen. I would look at Substance at times when I'd see her outside or rarely in our house now, and just open my mind to her. All she had to do was take a single step, say or grunt a single word, even just tune in. Roana would join me in silent prayer, holding me from the side in our bedding at night, even Rökkr and Spring joining in beside us. Substance had to be sensing it all, no matter where she would be.

I discovered what love and commitment, real peace, even patience were though. Maybe God, Spirit or the gods intended it all partly for me . . . I don't know.

What I do know is that it lasted about a month.

"Sir . . ." Tor said, coming to me one morning as I was crossing the commons back towards the lab while Roana peeled away again. He just handed me another classified telex.

It simply consisted of a couple sentences . . .

_D.R. Longship underway, with raiding party._

_ETA Tuesday, 19 May 1981, 1400 hrs._

_You owe me, Colonel._

— _Thorndyke_

"Call a tribal meeting, Løytnant," I smiled, passing the sheet back to him, "tomorrow, at the time indicated . . . and send a secret reply telex, 'Thank you for your help. All grateful here—just as soon as they're informed. Invitation to historic happening extended in payment of debt. Can provide air transport if you're short. Hope to see you at party. — C.H."

Even Tor now went away, shaking his head with an irrepressible smile on his face, all but laughing.

With the stage set and the choreography truly in motion, I now tried to enjoy one more day of normalcy . . . starting with hunting for Roana.

— — — — —

Then, it came . . . the day, everything.

"Everyone," I said as the tribe was dutifully assembled that afternoon at the appointed hour in the ceremonial area, with Roana translating as usual beside me. "A year ago, Roana and I were offered a feast in celebration of our mating. The mating happened, and is still happily happening. But the feast did not.

"And, a thousand years ago, our people were forced to flee from islands we had known as home for nine human generations, far longer than that in dragon generations."

As I spoke, everyone assembled in front of Roana and I was no longer looking at us however, but off to one side beyond us. While Roana became curious as to why, even turning her head to look behind us as well, I just began smiling.

"Today," I continued as I glanced at her, "both those things will be set right—"

"Lance," my mate interrupted me, tapping me on the shoulder, but looking offshore now, " . . . what is that?"

"An American aircraft carrier—one of their larger ones," I casually replied, finally turning my head as well, seeing the great grey ship emerge a distance offshore amid the lingering fog that typically surrounded our island on calm days until late afternoon. "Mind if I continue?"

"Why is it here?" she asked.

"To get the dragons down and back," I breezily answered, "especially our handicapped and elderly . . . all of us."

"You mean . . . ?" she now said in amazement.

"Surprise," I smiled. "You, me, every last dragon and human here is going—"

"To Berk? To Old Berk?" she finished for me, amazed.

"For our wedding, and one triumphant homecoming for our tribe," I said. "Only for a visit though," I then qualified. "It just can't be permanent."

"D-Do we still have a Barony after this?" she stammered, glancing at the huge ship again.

"We're only borrowing it for a few days," I assured.

"All that . . . out there," she said, her eyes still stuck on the carrier as it fully emerged from the fog now, turning and slowly passing by our island, "you wouldn't be doing this if everyone couldn't come, too?"

"I couldn't have," I replied.

I was now the recipient of the fiercest kiss I had ever known. The rest of my well-planned speech was basically pointless now amid the cheering and roaring that was erupting around us.

There was just one thing left to do . . . once Roana released me from that kiss.

"To the dragon caves!" I directed.

"Til drekanum hellum!" my mate almost tearfully translated once more, still tightly embracing me.

"We're going to need lots of help . . ." I finished, my voice fading as I still looked at her.

"Whoa, Garrison!" I then heard Chief O'Connell exclaim near us, trying to hold back his dragon with one hand as Ilsa held onto him amid their safety straps. "I've never seen him this excited."

"Garrison has just wanted to go to sea with his companion, as the honourary SEAL he is," I shrugged with a smile.

I then watched as every Dragon and Rider, and most every other dragon in attendance, took off, turning east towards the dragon caves to help. Even Roana, Rökkr and Spring were soon poised to go, ready to lend hand and wing to the effort as well—but they were waiting for me.

And I was waiting to see if anyone . . . any dragon . . . would offer me a ride.

Finally, one slowly stepped forward.

"Lannce . . ." I heard her familiar voice say, broken with shame and regret.

I found myself taking a deep, peaceful breath. " . . . Where do I begin?" I gently replied, stepping forward as well, extending my hand.

"I . . . I . . ." Substance tried to say, words just failing her.

" . . . Learning," I said, touching her head now. "Trying out the hardest paths in life—maybe all of them—so you can warn others not to, from the best teacher of all . . . experience. You saved Marta though, almost right from the start."

"I vas concerned about you, friend," Marta added, coming up beside me as she knelt, laying a caring hand on Substance's head as well.

"Everyonne was," the remorseful dragon replied. "Couldn't escape it."

"I need wings to fly," I continued, "and you need eyes to see . . . if either one of us are going on this trip. I for one kinda don't want to get left behind here—especially after all the work I put into making it happen. We will have time to talk, to forgive, and to apologize as we sail. I want to apologize as well. But we need to go, and lead, if we are to at all. So, how about it, Substance? How about you swallow your shame, as I swallow my regret, and we just fly?"

My dragon companion then just nudged her snout against me in acceptance, as I found myself just silently praying for both of us to no one in particular . . . just praying.

"Let's go," I then said. "We'll fix everything else later."

Marta, I noticed, had already turned and flagged down a passing Nadder, hopping up upon its neck without hesitation. She was indeed learning fast.

As I leapt into Substance's saddle though, and she took off with both of us, I could still feel that wedge, that glacier, between us. We seemed to be as far apart as Dragon and Rider had perhaps ever been. Yet we were leaders of our tribe, expected to function as one. Even I had to focus on that now as I looked ahead while we flew together up the valley.

"Substance," I couldn't help saying with a tear in my eye, "it's good to be in your saddle again." My dragon said nothing in reply, but I could see tears streaming from the corners of her half-opened, lifeless eyes.

_Peace . . ._ I just thought, briefly closing my eyes and laying a hand upon her head.

Before long, I was landing Substance and myself at the dragon caves as the first of our maimed and aged dragons were already being brought out its entrances, both helped to limp along by other dragons, as well as on wheeled wooden platforms. Villagers and our FSK soldiers were then running modern nylon air cargo straps or netting underneath each infirm dragon before they were hoisted up by Dragons and Riders, along with independent dragons, being carefully flown into the air for a ride and journey none of these dragons thought they would ever be making.

Everyone was busy as I dismounted and stood next to my dragon companion. The collective sense of excitement and joy among everyone there, dragon and human, as they worked or were worked upon . . . I still can't describe it.

Tor, our FSK Exec, was standing in the middle of it all at the twin cave entrances, walkie-talkie in hand as he was coordinating the activities.

"We are expecting the arrival of our Coast Ranger platoon soon, sir," he reported to me before I could say anything. "They're ready to guard the island while we're gone, but will be parachuting in for practice. I have a couple of Dragons and Riders in the air, ready to meet and escort their transport plane. Everything else is proceeding as planned. All of us should be evacuated from the island with the ship able to get underway by sunset."

"Well done, Løytnant," I praised. "You and your family have a ride though?" I asked, knowing he hadn't personally bonded with a dragon yet.

"We were just going to ride with a troop helicopter that I had called in to ferry some of our supplies and equipment," he almost sheepishly admitted.

"Tor . . ." I sighed, shaking my head, "while you have a house dragon with Salmei's Treystu, but can't ride her, Dragon Berkers don't ride in helicopters . . . more than necessary," I hedged. "Besides, I thought we had decided no helicopters here. Once most of us are onboard the carrier, there won't be room for a large helicopter to safely land on that flight deck."

"So call off the helicopter and just use and ride with dragons instead?" he almost winced.

I simply nodded. Then, amid the mass commotion of dozens of humans and hundreds of dragons all working around us, I merely closed my eyes, transmitting a clear thought.

Sure enough, a Nightmare stepped forward in front of Tor and I, stopping and looking at us with a steady gaze. I then gave it a further thought, with the dragon nodding once in confirmation.

I inwardly smiled to myself now, realizing I didn't need to worry all that much about having to speak Dragon, or even Old Norse much anymore in order to communicate . . . at least _to_ the dragons.

"There," I said, gesturing with my head towards the Nightmare, "is your family's ride out. With all those tall spines on their backs, they're the easiest for you and your family to hang on and ride with. This one will even help carry Treystu out as well from your house. I'm sure others can help ferry anything else we need."

"Yes, sir," Tor sighed, cracking a knowing smile.

"You got things here?" I then asked, having a feeling I was needed more at the other end of all this now.

"Go ahead, sir," he confirmed. "I . . . and this dragon, will be the last out, after ensuring the Coast Rangers are briefed and in place."

"Very well," I accepted, turning to remount Substance again.

"Oh, don't forget this, sir," our XO added though, handing me a spare walkie-talkie, complete with an earpiece and small mike. "You'll need it."

"Right," I remembered from among the innumerable briefings he and I had been having lately, along with O'Connell and others. "Names and call signs are still as planned, correct?"

"Yes, sir," Tor confirmed. "They are."

With just one foot in a stirrup of my dragon's saddle again, I stopped though, looking around our valley and mountains. This was the tribal home I had come to know, not that other, original Berk to the south. Even though I knew I would be returning here soon enough . . . once again, I found myself hating to leave this island.

"You okay?" I heard my mate say as she rode up behind me on Rökkr.

"I've just become a real homebody now with this place," I admitted as I hefted myself the rest of the way onto my dragon's saddle. "Your fault, you know," I quipped.

"Well, your tribe and nation, your family, and especially your bride and mate, appreciate your sacrifice," Roana answered with a smile in her voice. "Let's go. We lead from the front, remember?"

I finished mounting the saddle as the extent of what was happening, what I was now doing, began to hit me in full. Substance then launched us both into the air once more with barely a thought from me.

_I couldn't be doing this without you . . . _I gratefully thought to my dragon, stroking the right side of her neck with my gloved hand.


	45. Chapter 45

Substance and I, as well as our family, even Tana on Tvö Höffut perched between his two necks, were now all flying westward over our valley, gaining altitude. I looked around us, seeing a mass of dragons already airborne, some with riders, circling in a growing swarm that was barely contained between the two mountain ranges of our island . . . a swarm larger than anything I had seen before.

Yet none of them was venturing out beyond the safety, the refuge of our isolated valley. They were just circling within it, almost like a huge tornado, even a hurricane.

Roana was right. They had been waiting for us.

I just raised my left fist into the air now as first Substance and then Rökkr bellowed attention-getting roars, causing some of the dragons flying nearby to begin falling into a wedge, even cone formation behind us. I then swept my arm forward as our two Night Furies roared again.

For the first time, all of us were leaving the place we and our ancestors had known as home for a thousand years—longer now than we humans at least had known that other island to the south as home—as our people, both dragon and human, began flying en masse beyond our village out over the open sea.

I glanced at Roana and Rökkr next to me as we flew. My mate smiled back as the black dragon beneath her kept his attention on flying. This moment seemed magic, even overwhelming to me.

"Shouldn't we be checking in?" my mate noted, now wearing her own walkie-talkie and headpiece as well.

I nodded, turning my attention back towards the massive grey ship we were now approaching as I depressed the transmit button on the side of my own walkie-talkie clipped into a specially-sewn slot pocket that was now standard on all flying jackets, thanks to the innovation of the creative wife of one of our new FSK soldiers. She had even sewn it into both Roana's and my jackets. "Longship, Longship, this is Dragon Leader, over," I now said into my headpiece.

"Dragon Leader, this is Longship," came the reply in my ear. "We read you, over."

"Request permission to begin landings," I then radioed, "both on deck, and directly into the hangar ports. Request all elevators be positioned at hangar level to aid in reception, over."

"Roger that, Dragon Leader," I heard back. "Ship is adjusting course into the wind to aid. Relative wind southwesterly, Two-Four-Zero degrees, speed approximately twenty knots at this time. Permission to commence landings granted. Also, your presence is requested on the bridge once you are onboard, Colonel, over."

"Roger, Longship," I sighed, seeing Roana smiling at me out of the corner of my eye. "Dragon Leader, and swarm, commencing approach. Out.

"One of these days," I then warned Roana after releasing the transmit button on my radio, "I might have you deal with the 'Outside Formalities' again."

"This is your show, Chief," she reminded me with a smile, before suddenly peeling away in a roll with her dragon. "Dragon Two to Dragon Leader," she then radioed, presuming or assuming her own call sign. "I'll drop down and draw some of the swarm into the hangar ports while you land on deck with others. Catch you later. Dragon Two out."

Sure enough, some of the dragons behind us now began splitting off and dropping down behind Roana and Rökkr while others remained behind Substance and I, with Spring flying alongside us. Realizing I might only get to do this once though . . . "Longship, this is Dragon Leader," I radioed. "I'll do a fly-round and then line up for landing, over."

"Roger, Dragon Leader," the reply came. "Permission granted. Flight Deck cleared and ready for your arrival."

There it was in front of us as we approached it now from the port quarter—left rear for the non-nautically oriented—a top of the line American aircraft carrier. The massive ship's regular numbers and markings were temporarily painted out for her use with us, while the Berk standard flew proudly alongside the Norwegian flag from a yardarm of her single mainmast ahead of the American flag flying from a separate arm to the rear atop the island superstructure.

"I've got point now," I said to my dragon, asking her to give me control of our flight as we flew forward above and beside the ship's flight deck before I took us into a turn around the ship's bow, looking over its entirety as she steamed beneath us through the calm sea, surrounded by a belt of fog while bathed in sunshine from above. Substance and I then swept back along her starboard or right side, past the elevators and island. This ship, this massive grey ship . . . she was ours for the next few days.

Guiding us into a banked turn once more behind the ship's stern over the frothy trail the hull and its four propellers or screws were leaving in their wake, as well as through the trail of light smoke this non-nuclear, oil-fired warship was leaving behind, I lined Substance up for a landing, intending to set down in the middle of the forward flight deck to leave plenty of room behind us for other dragons. I could see Roana and Rökkr already landing upon the port quarter elevator platform in front and below me.

Having never thought I'd be adding 'Dragon Carrier Pilot' to the growing list of everything else I had been doing in life, I now took Substance and I into a gentle but fairly fast descent, focusing intently upon the rear of that flight deck in front of us. I then had us sweep low over that deck as I raised my sights further along the deck while Substance spread her wings to slow us in the air.

"Not need theatrics," my dragon warned me.

"Allow me a little fun here," I shot back while nonetheless focusing on the spot of deck we would land on, before we landed with a gentle thud as Spring landed beside us as well.

"Owww . . ." my dragon then winced, picking up her left forepaw as Spring flinched a little as well beside us. "Deck surface rough. Hard on paws."

"It's to prevent planes and their tires from just skidding off over the side," I explained, looking at the rough, black flight deck surface as well. "Mentally warn the other dragons, would you?"

"Warning," my dragon replied as I now dismounted her while a phalanx of dragons of every breed began landing on the same deck behind us.

"Sir!" a petty officer in a navy blue work uniform, jacket and ballcap now called, running towards me across the flight deck from the island. "I am to escort you to the bridge."

_No chance to savour the arrival . . ._ I thought to myself.

"Substance—" I began to caution my dragon.

"I not fall off ship," she knowingly replied. "I stay put. Already letting Rökkr know where I am."

"I stay, help her," Spring chimed in beside us as well.

"Thanks, Spring. Substance . . ." I now sighed.

"We talk later," my dragon pre-empted once again.

"Well, know that I'm sorry for my part in this," I replied anyway.

"You have little, if anything, to apologise for," she answered, "compared to me."

I just knelt before her now. Substance was right—this rough flight deck with its black paint seemingly frozen in innumerable tiny, sharp waves was painful to even kneel on, coarse-cloth village Berker pants notwithstanding. I took her large snout in both my hands though and nudged its tip with my nose, closing my eyes, as the astonished crewmember looked at both of us.

"We family. We bonded," my dragon assured—warm, fishy breath and all before we parted and I stood up once more.

"I wouldn't be whole, complete, if that was not so," I replied, reluctantly turning away from her with a final touch of my hand upon her head.

"This way, sir," the crewman encouraged in front of me as he started back across the broad flight deck, turning his head to ensure I was following him. Both of us were having to dodge now and then as other dragons continued to land all around us as we made our way to the ship's tall 'island' superstructure. No sooner did we finally reach a hatchway into that island though than I heard a familiar voice . . .

"Welcome onboard, sir," Oleg greeted me, this time in a Norwegian Army battle dress uniform with a major's epaulets.

"I see you arrived ahead of me," I sighed, cracking a smile.

"You had enough to worry about without picking me up," he replied. "Besides, the Baroness and her senior staff called me to Oslo a couple weeks ago to help with logistics."

"I presume your family is onboard," I checked.

"Have been since we departed Stavanger, sir," he assured. "I'll take him from here, crewman," Oleg then directed, ushering me towards a stairway down to the lower decks.

"Bridge is the other way, Oleg," I noted, knowing we needed to go up not down.

"I'm taking you to your quarters first, sir," he explained, leading me down the stairs. "We've put Roana and yourself in the air wing commander's accommodations—"

"We sleep with our dragons," I countermanded, cutting him off, "either in the hangar, or out on the flight deck."

"The Barony wants you looking and feeling your best however, sir," he maintained as he continued leading me down further flights of stairs.

Deciding not to argue further with him for the moment, I continued to follow Oleg as he was soon leading me along a white passageway and then through a brown door marked 'Commander, Air Group' into a well appointed senior officer's day room.

"If you would be so kind, sir," Oleg then said, ushering me into the suite's bedroom, "we have a suitable change of clothes for you."

"I don't need to dress as an Outsider this time," I began to object as he produced a black garment bag from one of the lockers.

"You are our head of state though," he countered, "and with all due respect sir, we on the Outside want to be led by someone dressed better than a barbarian."

"Okay, for now," I grudgingly accepted as I began to shed my Berker flying jacket. "But when we reach the island, I'm arriving the same way, and in the same attire, as Hiccup left it in."

"He didn't have a flying jacket," Oleg either noted or quipped. I just sighed.

As I continued to undress, he produced a khaki officer's uniform from the garment bag, complete with an opposing pair of small silver dragons on the collars of the shirt, their wings somewhat extended, and a further pair of silver dragons set upon gold epaulets on the uniform's zippered field jacket.

"Making me a flag officer, eh?" I wondered.

"You asked for Barony uniforms, sir," he noted. "Well, here's a start."

"Can't argue with you there," I conceded as I now changed into the uniform. "You're our aide again?"

"With the power to guide, counsel, even dissuade you this time if necessary," he warned. "Baroness' orders."

"But she and I are equals," I reminded him.

"We are borrowing a multi-billion dollar American aircraft carrier," he countered, "as well as its surrounding task force, all at your request. The Barony cannot afford any errors or accidents. As an old saying goes, 'Those who pay the gold, make the rules.' And that is not you, sir. In charter terms, I am the Charter Party's Representative, until the Baroness joins us. You are our head of state. Quite simply, you get to say where we go, but not how we get there."

"Understood," I sighed as I finished dressing in the uniform now. "I suppose I need a shave and a haircut so I look regulation in this?"

"Razor's in there, sir," he said, gesturing to the bathroom or 'head', as it's called on a ship. "Your choice of electric or blade. But I am not Roana," he added.

"I think I remember how to shave," I replied with slight annoyance, heading for that small space now.

"Please hurry, sir," he encouraged though, "they do want to see you on the bridge. I will be back in a moment, as soon as I've delivered these . . . clothes," he said, reluctantly collecting my village attire that I had just changed out of, "to the officer's laundry. Please wait here. We don't need you getting lost."

"I have been on a couple of ships before, Oleg," I noted as I looked at myself in a mirror for the first time in a while in the head, deciding to go back to my old electric shaver ways for the moment as I applied pre-shave lotion across my lower face.

I was beginning to resent this whole situation now as I aggressively ran the electric razor along my jaw. _What the heck,_ I decided, then switching to the razor's electric trimmer head and proceeding to shave off even my brown goatee, before trimming the edges of my hairline around my ears and neck as well.

_If Roana complains,_ I thought, seeing the face of my former persona once again emerging in full, _I'll blame it on Oleg._ If I was going to be wearing the uniform of an admiral, I figured I might as well have the face of one.

"Much better, sir," Oleg praised upon seeing me now as he re-entered the cabin.

"But I'm supposed to be Viking," I sighed.

"Well, just because we are both Viking, sir, doesn't mean we have to look like the stereotype," he replied. "Your presence is awaited on the bridge though."

With a further resigned sigh, now fully dressed and even shaved as an Outsider once more, I followed him back out into the narrow corridor.

"Am I going to be this tightly managed the whole trip?" I asked as I then followed Oleg back up those stairs, or ladders as they're called at sea.

"This is the most complex and perhaps risky undertaking the Barony has ever been asked to finance and embark on," he replied. "You can thank His Majesty though for leaning on the Baroness at just the right times leading up to this. You and he apparently share a perhaps somewhat reckless sense of adventure that many of the rest of us do not."

"So," I asked, laying a hand on his shoulder, stopping us both on one stairway landing, "are you my guardian, Oleg? Or gatekeeper for these others you speak of?"

"I am a bridge between two worlds, even two realities, sir," he replied, "tasked with safeguarding each. Please do not ask me to be other than that which I must."

I took my hand off his shoulder, silently nodding my acceptance of his answer before we continued up more ladders the rest of the way to the bridge far above.

Finally, we reached a level where I could see daylight through an open doorway ahead of us. Oleg led me forward, nodding to a crewman beside us as we entered the bridge.

"Dragon Chief on the bridge," the crewman called out, causing a middle-aged man with small silver eagles on his khaki collars, sitting upon one of two green elevated chairs on the bridge to now get out of his seat and cross behind the central helm station to approach us.

"Welcome onboard, Chief," he greeted, extending a hand to me now. "Captain Jack Andrews."

"A pleasure, Captain," I replied. "U.S. Navy though?" I wondered, seeing his uniform and hearing his American accent.

"Uncle Sam wasn't just going to just hand over one of his carriers to a tribe of Vikings without someone who knew how to actually run one keeping an eye on things," he smiled. "I have a core Navy deck and engineering crew under me, all with 'Secret' or better clearance, supplemented by your Barony people, as well as some others."

"Others?" I wondered.

"The people you asked me for," another voice said from behind me.

"Bob!" I said, turning to find my old friend and CIA colleague as we both embraced one another warmly. He was about my late thirties in age, with a similar fair complexion and fit build, just with his black hair buzz cut.

"I am so glad you're alive, pal," he almost sniffed as he embraced me. "You were missed more than you know."

I backed a little, giving him a curious look.

"We thought someone had taken you out," he added quietly, "the other side, or even ours. That blown-up resort cabin was quite convincing. Nice touch though with the planted bone fragments. They were so thoroughly incinerated and pulverized, obviously in advance, even I couldn't rule out they weren't yours."

"Sorry," I apologised. "It was standard operating procedure with the Berk Outside Guardians, and the way we all used to do things."

"Used to?" he wondered.

"It's a whole new world, now that we're opening up to it, and coming out a little here and there . . ." I said as we both saw none other than Garrison swoop past us outside through the angled bridge windows, carrying both Miles and Ilsa.

"You've been holdin' out on ol' Kaiju, bro," he marvelled as we both watched Garrison and the O'Connells bank away. "I am gettin' a ride on one of those, right?"

"You will," I assured before turning to the captain once more. "Captain, would it be possible to maintain a somewhat close station to our island until all of us are onboard?" I asked diplomatically. "Our dragons don't need a headwind to land, and given we're ferrying a number of our maimed and handicapped, they would probably appreciate not having to chase this ship down across growing distances."

"Watch Officer," the captain then said, turning towards another uniformed officer, "Jim, let's turn north until we reach our original approach course, then just maintain this triangle until we're cleared to get underway again."

"Yes, sir," the other officer replied as he returned to checking the chart spread on a table in front of him. "Helm, right standard rudder. Come to course Zero-One-Zero."

"Right standard rudder," the Navy helmsman replied turning the ship's wheel while watching the rudder angle indicator and gyro compass repeater in front of him, "coming to course Zero-One-Zero."

"I understand you're married, Chief," the captain continued, drawing my attention back to him once again.

"Mated, sir," I corrected.

"Captain, please, even Jack," he quietly corrected in turn. "With those gold epaulets, you outrank me."

"Sorry," I smiled. "I used to be a colonel myself—still am I guess, in intelligence circles. But marriage is one of my objectives this trip. Mating is what we call it among the tribe on the island. Long story."

"Well, I hope to learn more about it," the captain replied with a smile. "I hope you and your fiancée will join the task force admiral and I for dinner this evening?"

Oleg gave me a quiet, cautionary look and nod.

"Roana and I would be delighted," I accepted. Any dining with our dragons would have to wait for now.

— — — — —

Soon, at my request, Oleg and I, along with a Navy lieutenant the captain had assigned to us as our escort and liaison to enable him to keep in touch as needed, were down inside the ship's cavernous hangar deck, looking for Roana amid an already growing crowd of both dragons and villagers who were attempting to set up house for the voyage.

Finally, we found Rökkr and her near a large side port as warning klaxons sounded their long, 'AOOOOOGAs' while the elevator platform was descending from the flight deck with two healthy Nightmares flanking an amputee Nadder between them.

"Hi," I said to her as I approached from behind. "Landing the dragons on the flight deck now?" I wondered though.

"It's easier to land them on the flight deck where their wings have more room," Roana explained without looking at me, "and then bring them down here. How are you?" she finally said, turning to me as she gave me a kiss.

"Managed," I quietly sighed to her.

"What happened to your face?" she now wondered, finally noticing the absence of my goatee. "Uniform looks nice though."

"All part of the 'image'," I noted, almost in resignation.

"I suppose we're expected for dinner somewhere?" she guessed.

"There will be plenty of raw fish for the dragons," Oleg assured next to me, "as well as buffet set-ups for the human villagers at several different locations in both the hangar and the enlisted mess spaces. They've asked for no fires though among dragons or humans while we're onboard. But yes, both you and Lance are expected to dine with the captain and admiral, and don't worry, I've brought a duplicate set of uniforms for you, all let out somewhat in the middle."

"You know me too well, Oleg," my mate smiled. "But could we get some help here? Moving maimed dragons around, even on these navy dollies, isn't easy."

"Come on," I said, stepping out onto the large elevator platform now as the sea rushed by beyond, "let's lend a hand—you, too, Lieutenant," I added, drafting our liaison as well while we all got behind the disabled Nadder and began to push it inside the hangar deck on the wheeled dolly it had been placed on.

"Over there," Roana directed, gesturing with her head towards a vacant spot against a side bulkhead while she carried the dragon's tail behind us. "Tail against the bulkhead so she can see out and socialize with others."

"Socialize, sir?" my Navy liaison quietly asked as he pushed the Nadder beside me.

"These dragons are as intelligent in their own way as we are," I replied as we now pivoted the disabled dragon into position for the voyage. "Each one of these we're helping here is a disabled veteran of the brief war we fought against a clandestine invading team of Soviet commandos last summer. They are to be accorded full respect and assistance as such, so pass the word. Understood?"

"Aye, aye, sir," the officer now replied smartly as we stepped back from helping the Nadder while the two Nightmares who had brought her were already ascending back to the flight deck via the elevator on their own, presumably for another flight back to the island as warning klaxons sounded around them once more.

"I should go back to the island myself, one more time," Roana now told me, "just to be sure the evacuation is going well. Tor is still new at all this."

"This whole thing is partly for you," I reminded her, "and you're pregnant."

"Well, don't hold it against me," she quipped, climbing onto Rökkr's saddle as he lay down on the deck for her before rising up again. "See you later," she said as the two of them then took to the air, right inside the hangar deck, deftly turning and zooming out a side elevator port, all with just a quiet swoosh.

"Maybe the Navy should be taking a look at those things," our liaison sighed in amazement, " . . . whole special ops squadrons of them."

"Don't think so," I replied, dissuading him, even though I wouldn't think of going into battle without a dragon now. Standing beside one another, Oleg and I now exchanged a knowing glance, with me giving him a nod, conceding he was right. There were two worlds here—each needing protection, and separation to a degree.

"I'll be on the admiral's bridge," I then decided to Oleg's surprise, turning away. "I should be introducing myself to him."

— — — — —

The transfer of dragons, villagers and the supplies we needed continued for several more hours as I liaised and explained things to the task force admiral, as well as the ship's captain and the aides and division officers under them. It turned out that we rated no less than a three star vice admiral, dispatched straight from Washington, DC for this mission—an unusual step to be sure.

"Personal request from Thorndyke, as well as the National Security Advisor," the admiral explained, adding nothing more however. He didn't need to.

'Kaiju' Bob was both helping and questioning me about dragons at the same time through all this. Despite the fact he was one of the world's top diagnostic molecular scientists . . . well, he didn't get out much. So there were a lot of dragon and monster biases to get over with him. He even wondered what kind of pillaging my tribe still did as Vikings.

"I mean," he was quietly enthusing to me at one point on the nav bridge, "dragons and Vikings, together? No wonder Washington sent a vice admiral to see you."

"Look," I said, taking him outside through a hatchway and pointing up to the Berk Standard flying from the steel yardarm above us, "that flag couldn't provide a clearer visual representation of what my tribe has stood for since time immemorial. That Viking's sword is sheathed. The dragon's mouth is closed. Neither are attacking. They're just vigilant and on guard, protecting what matters to them — their tribe . . . as best they can. In battles, we've lost as much or more than we've won. The only way we survived the Dark Ages, the Black Death, inquisitions, changing empires, revolutions, as well as World Wars One and Two as an independent people was to hide, and hide well. We aren't conquerors or even pillagers . . . just survivors, barely so after even a single squad of Soviet commandos decimated us . . . trying to get to me." I was just keeping it together now.

"You like 'monsters'?" I asked, leaning upon the rail and looking out upon the ocean. "Then try looking at life from the monster's point of view. We do that every day . . . and it's changed the world for me."

A Dragon and Rider now flew by in the distance amid the evening twilight around us as the sun was setting beyond a clear horizon and blue sky. They had taken up aerial patrols around the carrier, treating it as if it were a new island home for us . . . which for the duration of the trip, it would be.

"Vikings only even really pillaged because they were starving at home," I added.

"So where did all the hype come from?" Bob asked next to me. "For both Vikings and dragons?"

"Mead," I replied. "The greatest bravado juice there is. Fueled with enough of that, the deeds one feels like taking on are big, and the stories afterwards are even bigger. We did manage to kick some butt in our day though," I admitted.

"Dragons . . . are they like horses?" he then asked.

"Mister Ed, maybe," I shrugged, accepting his questioning by now, " . . . just with the attitudes and discipline of the toughest teachers you've ever known."

"But they're enough to give up a life for . . ." he noted.

"They have given me a life now," I replied, "a life that means something."

Kaiju just nodded next to me. The questions had been answered.

— — — — —

Soon, as darkness was falling, Tor radioed in . . . "Dragons Two and Three on approach with final passengers. Island is fully evacuated and secure, over."

"This is Dragon Chief, copy that, over," I replied personally this time with a hand mike on the carrier's navigation bridge.

"Treystu's the last one," Roana radioed as well, as they along with two other independent Nightmares were flying our last disabled dragon out to the carrier. "She's not doing well though. I need to watch her for now, so please excuse me from dinner, over."

"Does Salmei know? Over," I radioed back, looking for them with binoculars out the bridge windows, sweeping across the darkening eastern horizon.

"She's right here with me, on Rökkr," my mate replied. "I'm just thankful she doesn't understand English, over."

"Want my help? Over," I offered.

"That would only make Salmei worry more than she already is," Roana radioed back. "Continue with dinner. Just save or have someone bring us a plate or two to the hangar deck, over."

"Have you in sight," I confirmed, spotting them approaching the ship's port quarter. "Should we have moved her? Over," I then cautiously asked, lowering my binoculars.

"Treystu wasn't going to miss this trip for anything," my mate replied. "She even asked for extra pain medications. They aren't exactly working though, over."

"Take care of her, over," I soberly replied, seeing them hover and then all carefully set down upon the port quarter elevator platform as crewmembers positioned a dolly with mattresses padding it under the ailing Nightmare.

"We're landed," Tor soon simply confirmed. "Dragon Three, out."

"Captain," I said without taking my eyes off them as that elevator was then being lowered to the hangar deck, "you may get underway. Make your course for Dragon Island first however . . . what's now called King Olaf's Island on the charts," I slowly added as Oleg gave me a surprised look. "For Treystu and the others," I quietly explained to him. "They deserve to see their homeland before we see ours."

"Helm, come right to course Two-Three-Zero," the captain then ordered himself. "All ahead Standard. Make revolutions for twenty-five knots."

"Coming right to course Two-Three-Zero," the helmsman replied, turning the ship's wheel to the right.

"All ahead Standard," the lee helm replied to the right of the helmsman, rotating the two Engine Order Telegraph handles forward as clear plastic reply indicators moved and buzzed within them to match. "Making revolutions for twenty-five knots," the crewman then said, rotating the three RPM dials beneath the telegraph handles as they also briefly buzzed.

"Inform the task force 'Longship' is getting underway," the vice admiral instructed a talker beside him, "course Two-Three-Zero, speed twenty-five knots."

"Aye, sir," the signalman replied before he began talking into the mouthpiece of the sound-powered headset he was wearing.

"Watch officer, you have the Conn," the captain then said amid the now darkened bridge, before turning to me. "Shall we go to dinner?" he then invited.

I gave a last look out the bridge windows at that lowered port quarter elevator before turning away as well.

— — — — —

Dinner among the admiral, captain and myself was fairly uneventful, at least at first. Oleg was there as well of course, continuing to 'manage' me on behalf of the Barony. My mind was mostly elsewhere though.

"Gotta hand it to you, Lance," the fairly slim but greying admiral noted at one point, "you have friends in high places . . . either that, or minders in high places."

I didn't dare express a preference one way or the other, even though I clearly felt it was as much the latter as the former.

"Either way, I owe you," he continued as he enjoyed his steak, "this is the first field mission I've been assigned to away from Washington since I became a vice admiral. Even the president wanted to join in on this one, until he was told his absence couldn't be adequately explained or covered for. Still, he wants pictures. He's even read reports of your battle last year, and would like to open discussions with your people about some possible joint ops through NATO using your dragons . . . which is one reason I guess I was sent here."

I could tell without looking that Oleg was now on full, even intense alert beside me, his eyes probably drilling cautionary holes into my head.

"Admiral," I calmly replied, finishing my own mouthful of medium-rare steak, "if you've read those battle reports, you will know that we didn't exactly do well on our own, until Navy SEALs and the Norwegian MJK basically came to our rescue. Dragons may fly agilely and breathe devastating blasts of fire, but their speeds are a fraction of bullets or missiles. They have no natural shielding other than thick hides in places, and the ranges of their natural weaponry are extremely limited. I could throw a rock farther than a Nadder or Nightmare could shoot their flames. Dragons are basically little better against even modern infantry than cavalry horses were against machine guns in World War One. My own dragon companion's blindness can attest to that."

I wasn't about to mention the far superior ranges that Night Furies could fire their own blasts however, or the superior force of those blasts. As far as I was concerned, that was an Ultra Classified matter that was above the admiral's pay grade, right up there with Lazarus.

"I see . . ." the flag officer sighed with obvious disappointment. "So I can inform the National Security Advisor and the President that there is basically no point."

"You may do just that," I quietly confirmed as I took another bite of steak while Oleg unobtrusively gave me a pat and grip on my right leg with his left hand under the table with unfathomable relief, but tempered with some empathy as well.

I gave a brief, confirming glance towards him, hoping that my own aide and minder would begin trusting me now, perhaps even becoming a guardian I could trust.

— — — — —

After dinner, and dismissing both Oleg and our Navy liaison for the evening, I went looking for Roana on my own, deciding to wear a heavy military winter parka that Oleg had thoughtfully provided me with. My mate wasn't on the hangar deck however with Treystu and Salmei. They were both thankfully sleeping together amid the deck's now dimmed nighttime lighting as young Anders was making rounds near them among the many other dozing dragons, seeming to keep an eye cast in their direction though.

So, I climbed back up and out onto the flight deck amid the fairly stiff wind that was blowing along it. Hundreds more dragons were here as well. Those in the middle of the flight deck appeared to be sleeping, while others arrayed around its edges were sitting upright, apparently keeping a vigilant watch.

Knowing there were not only these dragons, but a number in the air around us, as well as dozens of humans up on the bridges and down in the engineering spaces and elsewhere, all keeping watch as this mammoth, city-sized ship plowed forward at the equivalent of twenty-nine miles an hour across the ocean off the Norwegian coast amid a dark, starry night . . . it gave me pause for a moment.

_If Hiccup had this ship,_ I silently mused as I looked around amid the darkness, _we could have fended off the Christian hoards._

_Only for a while,_ my analytical side chimed in however. _The outcome would still have eventually been the same._

I couldn't really disagree with that conclusion.

Finally though I found Rökkr and Roana, sitting upright together port side along the edge of the ship's angled flight deck, seemingly keeping watch with the other dragons. He was sheltering her from the cold wind however with both his body and left wing.

"Evening," I greeted as I approached, not wanting to startle either of them.

"Substance and Spring are at the bow," my mate replied. "But it's just too cold for me there."

I crouched down behind her on that rough deck, keeping my knees off it though given my even thinner Outsider uniform khakis, taking her into my arms. "Want to go inside?" I invited. "We do have a nice cabin. Seen it myself."

"Go . . . pllleeassse," Rökkr encouraged beside her while maintaining his gaze out upon the starry horizon.

"See Substance first," Roana suggested, turning her head to give me a kiss. "Then come back for me, and I'll do as you both want me to."

"How's Treystu?" I asked.

"Sedated, heavily," she sighed.

"I've ordered us to head for Dragon Island first," I said.

Roana gripped my arms tightly around her while nudging her forehead against the side of my face in silent gratitude amid the fur-lined hoods of the heavy jackets we were both wearing, her subdued mood saying everything her mouth wasn't.

"Go," she finally encouraged aloud though, "see Substance, and then come back for me." Nothing more needed to be said between us as I gave her a final gentle squeeze and kiss before rising to my feet once more.

Then, making my way forward along the dark flight deck with the aid of a flashlight amid the crowd of other dragons, I found Substance and Spring at right at the forward edge of the flight deck, the very bow of the ship, next to the bare jack staff and exposed to the full force of the almost icy, biting wind we were seeming to cut through right along with the ocean. The wind here was whistling even louder than the ocean was roaring more than fifteen metres below us. Substance had her eyes closed and head raised in serene meditation though, seeming to be completely unfazed as Spring noticed me coming up beside them.

"I can see why Roana doesn't want to be up here," I said, having to lean into the wind myself, placing a hand on Substance for support.

"Nnot her job," my dragon replied. "Just minne."

"Your job?" I wondered.

"Leaders lead, from front," she reminded me.

"You're not cold?" I followed up.

"Cold like pain of battle," she replied. "Both can be ignored, for as long as needed. My hide thick, adequate protection. Take Spring with you. He been here long enough. I safe, not move from this spot."

"You wanna talk?" I offered.

"This my apology, my penitence to all," she replied. "Leading my people homme."

"We're going to Dragon Island first," I noted.

"I know. Grateful for that order you gave," she replied. "Some of us intend to die there."

"Substance . . . ?" I said with both surprise and some caution.

"You cannot stop it," she added, "only help."

"Does that include you?" I dared to ask.

"No," Substance answered. "Not my time, although I may ask to be brought back someday. Dragon Island is Asgard, even Valhalla to us . . . hallowed, sacred."

"I understand," I empathized. "What about us, you and I, then?"

"Cannot be resolved any faster than problem was created," she said. "That my challenge though, not yours. I address it though, even now . . . as I have been for some time."

"Meditating," I summarized with a little irritation.

"Not all things can be resolved in a day," she replied.

"Let's go for a ride," I then decided, mounting into her saddle. "Spring," I directed him, "stay here. Better yet, find Rökkr and Roana. We'll join you shortly."

At my mental urging, Substance merely had to spread her wings as we rose off the deck, before starting to flap them as I took control. This was no longer about talking things out with her, it was about flying them out as I had us diving and rolling, turning sharply and skimming just above the ship's bow waves as we now sped back along its dark starboard side.

I was more than impatient or ticked with Substance now. I was frustrated, even angry at her . . . angry enough to get right to the heart of what I sensed was not just bothering, but plaguing her, and having it out—at least putting a stop to her endless meditations that didn't seem to be getting her or us anywhere. They hadn't been for some time.

_Peel out, across the ocean,_ I then commanded in thought as we then sharply banked to the left away from the ship.

_Now,_ I dared her _. . . do to me what you've been doing to yourself!_

"No," she replied aloud.

I then reached, boring my mind into hers using her own powers. While in reality they were gripping the saddle, I felt my fingers practically reach inside and across each of Substance's wings, beginning to pivot them and rock us as I asserted control. Then I jerked and rolled us both over, plunging us right into the frigid ocean.

_THIS!_ my mind screamed at her while I held my breath, the cold waters beginning to tear at my body and senses like a thousand knives, _THIS IS WHAT YOU'RE DOING TO BOTH OF US!_

_NOOO!_ I heard her mind scream.

_YOU BLAME YOURSELF FOR KILLING AMUND!_ I continued unremittingly, anger now erupting throughout my being. _YET YOU'VE BEEN DOING THE SAME TO US! TO ME!_

_GIVE IT UP! _I demanded, forcefully holding us under that water through sheer willpower over her. _END THIS_ _OR GET IT OVER WITH! KILL US BOTH, RIGHT NOW!_

_Nooo-oo-oo . . ._ I felt her wimper through my mind.

_Give it up . . ._ I demanded, feeling myself weakening as well, but determined to kill the self-recriminating demon within her that had been punishing her for so long and driving that wedge between her and I. _Give it up . . . _I repeated as I felt our heads break the surface, allowing us both to take needed gulps of air amid the fortunately gentle ocean waves. I could hear alarms sounding on the carrier not far away as I sensed through Substance Dragons and Riders now flying rapidly towards us. I then collapsed on my dragon's neck just above the water's edge, everything fading to a numbing black . . .

— — — — —

"Lance . . . Lance . . ." I slowly heard as I became aware of bright light around me, interrupted by a lone shadow.

"Ssssubssstt . . ." I murmured, trying to say my dragon's name.

"She's being warmed in the hangar deck," I heard my mate assure as a warm cloth was laid over my forehead, "just as you are here."

"Had to make her give up that demon . . . force her to risk killing me," I breathed. "Been plaguing her for years, Amund's death . . . key to everything. Felt it . . . even saw it . . ."

I now felt Roana gently kiss my left cheek.

"Felt her wings as my hands . . . even fingers . . ." I mumbled, barely able to open my eyes.

"You've been deeper inside your dragon than any of the rest of us have," she gently said to me as she gave me another injection, "since legends of ages past."

"Had to . . ." I murmured. "Had to . . ."

"Shhhh . . ." my mate soothed, "just rest now. You've suffered hypothermia. Fortunately moderate. Everything's okay. Just rest."

"Hangar . . ." I whispered as I began fading out once more, "with my dragon . . ."

— — — — —

When I awoke again, I could see a dark grey metal overhead or ceiling much further above me, as well as hearing the ocean surging in stereo through several openings at a distance around me as well. I found myself thickly wrapped, almost cocooned in blankets, some of them electric hot pads as well. I was warm now . . . almost too much so.

"You tried to kill us," I heard a deep, familiar voice say next to me, which came from a large round body that was also enveloped in grey blankets.

"For a moment," I confessed, alert now but relaxed, "maybe I did."

"Worked," she said.

"Kinda felt it would," I admitted.

"I at peace with Amund," she continued. "Could not have saved him. That been colouring everything since until now. Being with Marta, exploring learning, great thoughts and knowledge, so intensely again as I did with him . . . brought it all to surface. Found myself in circle of self hate and loathing for what I felt I did to him, to you—everyone . . . Stupid dragon."

"No," I said this time, " . . . exploring, curious, intensely caring, even adventuresome dragon." I wanted to reach a hand to her, but found myself wrapped too securely amid my blankets to do so even though I was lying right next to her, both of us on mattresses on the steel hangar deck. So I just reached for her in thought, almost wrapping myself around her in a deep embrace within my mind. Even though I wasn't touching her, once again I felt myself spreading through her.

"It's there," I now said to her, feeling what she was—an almost black mass of regret, guilt, self-condemnation and more. "But you're not dealing with it alone anymore."

"Could be so lost, the way I am," she sighed.

"You were," I gently agreed, "but not now. You have a companion, who isn't letting go, and a whole family, as well as friends, even a tribe, who need you."

"Vell," I then heard from beside Substance and I, "you two are avake. How are you feeling?"

Substance and I were being interrupted now by the mundane, the everyday. _We'll continue this later,_ I thought to her. I felt a silent, wordless surge of gratitude from her in reply.

"Not bad, considering," I then replied to Marta, turning my head and noticing others gathering behind her.

"Thanks for the man overboard drill last night, Chief," Captain Andrews now said, stepping forward. "Just don't do it again. Although it was something watching your Dragon Riders respond—much faster than our helo or boat teams could. Your folks were on top of the situation, and you, before my watch officer could even order a Williamson turn to double back . . . not that you would have survived long enough in that water for us to get back."

"My dragon and I just got into a little trouble out there," I excused. "But we're guardians, and we're Viking," I then said, looking up as something just seemed to occur out of the blue to me. "We prize life, but we're not afraid of death," I continued. "I get it now though . . . Valhalla. Only the bravest can look death in the face, and go right through it—the ultimate unknown mystery. Surviving . . . it does feel almost like a consolation prize in a way. Hiccup, my ancestor, he never got that while he was here."

"Major Hyse . . ." the captain now called behind him, surely confused by my revelations, "your Viking's awake."

"Thank you, Captain," I heard a short distance away among other dragons, said with surprising indifference however.

"What's our E.T.A. to Dragon Island?" I now wondered.

"Fifteen hundred hours this afternoon," Captain Andrews replied.

"Time now?" I followed up.

"O Nine Forty," he replied, glancing at his watch. "But the Baroness and His Majesty are scheduled to arrive at Noon."

"Well," I sighed, "if someone could unwrap me, I think it's time I got back on the job. Substance, too."

There was that quiet surge of gratitude again from my dragon, even an inner smile.

— — — — —

Before long, I was released from my cocoon by both Roana and Marta. A quick check from them found me well enough that they both just returned to their respective morning rounds. Roana didn't seem exactly pleased with me, but I didn't really have to guess why. I then showered in my quarters, dressed in a cleaned uniform Oleg had provided me with, and was eating a late breakfast alone in the Officers' Ward Room.

"Care for a dining companion?" I heard offered from behind me, with some coolness though.

"I'm sorry," I opened as Roana sat down next to me, now feeling with her much like Substance had felt with me . . . stupid.

That made my mate pause.

"Rökkr alerted me as it was happening last night," she said, looking across the table beside me. "He just barked, organizing a rescue team of Dragons and Riders, complete with a cargo net, faster than I could think. He would have left me behind if I hadn't just instinctively jumped into his saddle.

"He had two riderless Nightmares dive into the water with one side of the net between them, running it under both of you," she continued, "before picking you off of Substance himself, holding you tightly against his body with his four legs to keep you warm and sheltered until we got back to the ship. My job was just caring for you both once we got here.

"You and Substance," she sighed, now looking at me though, "you're two of a kind in a way . . . both open, even prone towards boneheaded things."

"I instinctively felt I had to make her choose," I said, looking at my own scrambled eggs and toast, "between that endless circle of regret and condemnation, and me, even life in the here and now. I had to make her fight for that choice, for life and me . . . and she did."

"Would you let me apologise for the 'boneheaded' part then?" my mate asked.

Roana and I just turned our heads, looking at one another . . . then we embraced, sitting at that table.

"Don't you dare do that again," she sniffed against my shoulder.

"Maybe on fish runs though," I qualified. "Still haven't done that with Substance yet."

We both quietly chuckled amid our embrace.

— — — — —

Before long, I was back on the navigation bridge looking over charts with the duty navigation officer, planning our arrival off Dragon Island, while Substance was once again on the bow.

At the same time, Roana was down below on the hangar deck, preparing Treystu as well as an aged and maimed Nadder for what we all knew would be their final journeys. They would be the first to be ferried ashore to their island by Dragon and Rider teams.

"I don't care that we're overdosing them on both stimulants and pain killers," I had overheard her almost tearfully telling Anders as they began working before my mate and I parted once more. "By the end of the day, it won't matter anymore."

I had urged Roana to take it easy as her pregnancy now seemed to be taking a toll on her as well, but she told me, "You did what you had to last night. I have to do this . . . for the same kind of reasons."

I compliantly parted from her with a kiss, letting her get back to work.

Before long, the royal helicopter from Oslo was arriving . . . over half an hour ahead of schedule however.

"Bridge, Marshall Control," the warning came on our intercom. "We have a single V.I.P. helicopter checked in and cleared through the task force perimeter for approach, bearing One Zero Five True. Range now forty nautical miles and closing."

"Longship, Longship, this is Norge One, requesting permission to land. Over," the helicopter's transmission came almost right on top of Marshall Control's warning in English via speakers from a radio on the bridge monitoring assigned task force aviation frequencies.

Captain Andrews quickly moved to look out the port side bridge windows along the length of the flight deck, almost in horror as he saw virtually every square foot of it filled with dragons and even a number of human villagers all sunning themselves. He then rushed to grab a hand mike himself.

"Marshall Control, Bridge," he commed back. "Hold Norge One while we clear space on the flight deck.

"Chief," the captain then said to me as he continued to look at the crowded flight deck below, "I don't have an Air Boss this trip as most all our Air Wing was disembarked at Stavanger, so you're it. Figure out a way to clear enough of that flight deck for the helicopter to land, pronto, and do it."

"Yes, Captain," I replied.

"Put me on flight deck speakers," I then directed a seaman detailed to assist me while I picked up a hand mike. "Athygli," I said in my accented Norse to get everyone's attention. "Fær drekar á aftari þilfari taka til skýjanna. Sært drekar vinsamlegast færa fram. Ljóst pláss fyrir þyrlu til at lenda," telling the able bodied dragons on the rear of the flight deck to take to the skies while the maimed ones should move forward to make way for the helicopter, before repeating it all one more time.

Looking out the side windows of the bridge, fortunately many on the flight deck began to comply. Several Dragons and Riders were leading other dragons into the air around us, as our FSK quickly took charge, moving everyone else forward out of the way.

"Alright, Captain," I was soon able to report, "the rear flight deck is clear enough for landing."

"Marshall Control, Bridge," the captain relayed into a mike once again. "You can clear Norge One to land, flight deck aft."

The sleek but large dark blue helicopter now appeared over the horizon. _Must have an entourage with him this time,_ I thought to myself as I watched it. The helicopter moved low across the sky behind us until it was lining up beyond our stern over our frothy wake, as it then slowly and carefully descended, approaching our now cleared fantail as an Aircraft 'Handler' in a yellow jersey and helmet was now waiving it in with hand wands.

"Permission to leave the bridge, Captain," I then requested, "to welcome our guests."

"Go," Andrews simply replied as he looked out the forward windows once more. "Rogers, go with him," he then added, ensuring our Navy liaison accompanied us once more. Oleg of course joined us as well.

Rapidly descending the many flights of steep grey stairs down to the flight deck, Oleg, our lieutenant, and I emerged onto it, approaching the helicopter. Several royal HMKG agents had already protectively deployed around the aircraft, and dressed in her usual fine blue suit, the Baroness had disembarked from it as well, as had my Air Force cousin, Gunnar, along with his wife and children, to my surprise. But lofty as it was, flying in a royal helicopter with no less than the king himself, Gunnar's young girl and boy seemed far more spellbound staring at Rökkr who had now shown up next to them on his own, wearing both his saddle and strap of office, while Roana likely remained below in the hangar working among the dragons.

"Ikke rør," I managed to overhear Gunnar's wife say in Norwegian, telling her children not to touch Rökkr, while he simply maintained his attention on the king as the monarch was now emerging from the helicopter's opened side door.

"Lance," His Majesty warmly greeted as soon as he spotted me, extending not just one hand, but both towards me, forcing me to almost ignore the Baroness as well as my cousin and his family at first. The monarch then took me into an embrace as soon as I reached him . . . one that surprised not only me, but the others watching us.

"Well, you seem to command a navy larger than mine here," he admired, releasing me. "Thank you for this," he then whispered with a smile on his face.

"You're most welcome, Majesty," I quietly replied. "But all this is only rented—"

"At no small cost," Oleg felt privileged enough to interject, earning a quiet, cautionary look from the Baroness however.

"Still," the king said, retaining his smile, "this is a larger exercise than I have been present to see the Norwegian Navy engage in—and with dragons, no less. Magnificent . . ." he admired, seeming to come to a stop as he looked at all the dragons along with a fair number of villagers arrayed on the rest of the flight deck who were looking back at us.

I invited him to step among them with a subtle gesture of my right hand as the impact of at last encountering our long hidden tribe seemed to hit him in full. The HMKG continued to watch us carefully behind their sunglasses, probably with reservation, but the presence of our tribe's FSK platoon, all now dressed in their battle fatigues, probably helped put them at ease. Unusually though, while each FSK soldier was standing smartly at attention, some with assault rifles at their sides, they were dispersed among the dragons and villagers instead of being lined up together. They weren't apart from our tribe, or separating them from His Majesty, but showing they were fully part of our people, one with them, as we greeted the king. It was perhaps bold, even risky thinking on the part of Tor and our unit . . . but I liked it. After all, His Majesty had obviously come to meet our tribe, not review yet another smartly lined-up set of troops.

Then, led by Rökkr, first the dragons and then the human villagers all bowed their heads towards the king. I hadn't briefed or asked any of them to do so in advance, but I was profoundly grateful they now were.

"Th-The dragons know who I am?" the monarch quietly wondered to me, dumbfounded.

"Yes, Your Majesty," I replied. "You've met Rökkr before," I then introduced as Rökkr now raised his head, looking at the king, "at the lifeboat station when you visited us after the battle. He certainly remembers you. But he is now our Great Guardian — chief policeman and security officer of the tribe, you might say."

"Mmmajjjjessssttettt . . ." Rökkr strained to say with his deep voice in the best Norwegian he could muster while bowing his head once more, surprising me right along with the king.

"Hy-Hyggelig å møte deg igjen . . . Rökkr," the king stammered in Norwegian as well in returning the greeting, the two looking at one another now with a deep respect. Rökkr then slipped glances at me, the Baroness and my cousin, Gunnar, in turn—but knowing none of us present could translate what he really wanted to express in Dragon, he simply returned his gaze to the king with a subtle sigh.

_I am so sorry, Rökkr,_ I mentally apologised to him as his eyes briefly glanced my way again, blinking once as he also subtly nodded in acknowledgement.

Then a Nadder, whom I recognized as one of the cave elders from her purple colouring, stepped forward. She came to a stop, briefly towering over the king, before lowering her head before him and closing her eyes.

"What does this one want?" the king now asked me in a whisper. "What do I do?"

"She is an elder among the dragons in our tribe who choose to live in thermal caves on our island," I introduced as the Nadder remained with her head bowed. "She is simply greeting you—'shaking hands' as best dragons can by offering you her snout. You may accept either by placing your hand on her snout, or greeting as dragons do by nudging your nose to her snout."

A look of wonder now came over the greying king, sharply attired in his dark pinstripe suit, as he slowly moved forward towards the Nadder, who was keeping her head perfectly still and her eyes closed. The monarch couldn't help glancing at Rökkr again on his left as the dragon simply replied with an encouraging tilt of his head towards the Nadder while maintaining a steady gaze.

The Nadder's large, pointed snout now likely filling his vision, the king ever so slowly moved his head forward until his nose was touching the Nadder—a subtle, almost tearful convulsion of wonder and joy seeming to overcome him as he did.

The king then moved back, replacing his nose with a hand against the Nadder's snout. The dragon now opened her eyes, looking back at him as she turned her head somewhat to the right so she could make a visual connection as well with her large left eye. Fortunately, a couple of aides of either the king or Outside Guardians were on hand with cameras to record the historic greeting as monarch and dragon remained almost transfixed with one another.

"Lance . . ." the king said, keeping his gaze and hand upon the Nadder before him, but words just failing him.

"It happens to all of us," I gently assured, "especially us Outsiders who have the privilege of meeting them as adults for the first time. I am only sorry you are not meeting our tribe on our home soil though, sir," I added as we both looked at the other dragons now surrounding us.

"I will be," he quietly assured me though, looking at all of them with me as he kept his hand on the dragon elder, "with something your people and dragons have deserved for a millennium."

Even the Baroness was betraying a subtle smile on her face as she looked at me.


	46. Chapter 46

Now the king had me interested. But neither he nor the baroness was volunteering any further information, and it just didn't feel right to ask them.

So I proceeded to lead our guests further among my tribe on the carrier's flight deck. The king seemed both moved and almost lost in wonder as I then allowed him to step forward among the dragons and human villagers on his own while I began to hang back with the baroness. Even though my island people had seen a good number of visitors since the battle, ranging from MJK and SEAL commandos to medical relief personnel, and even though the villagers were now on quite alien territory onboard the aircraft carrier, our human tribal members still seemed wary of this regal pinstriped visitor. Some were even trying to back away. It was the dragons who were welcoming the king however, pressing forward around him, and basically bringing the villagers with them, allowing no easy escape.

"Quite something," my Air Force cousin, Gunnar, admired next to me as we watched.

"You know what the king was referring to?" I quietly asked him.

"Sorry, state secret," my cousin smiled.

"Gunnar . . ." I sighed.

"Don't press, Lance," the baroness now cautioned in almost a maternal way.

"You'll know what it is by the end of the day," my cousin pledged.

"Excuse me, sirs," the aircraft handler in his yellow jersey and helmet interrupted behind us. "Will this helicopter be staying? Would you like it to be serviced and fueled?"

"No," my cousin replied, turning towards him. "We'll be departing in just a moment."

"Going again already?" I wondered.

"For the rest of your surprise," Gunnar smiled. "It's why we arrived early, so we could make a second run to rendevous with you at the island this afternoon."

"Complicated logistics, eh?" I wondered.

"You have no idea," my cousin confirmed. "This is just the tip of it—a tiny tip at that."

"Do I want to know the rest?" I smiled.

"No, you don't," he sighed as his wife and children now gathered close to us. "But I must go.

"So," he then said, turning to his two children, "do you want to fly in the royal helicopter some more, or—"

"Drager!" they both gleefully interrupted in Norwegian.

"You seem to speak English to them a lot," I noted.

"So they can be part of a wider world," my cousin replied. "When an Italian or Greek and Norwegian get together, they tend to speak English. I want my children's options to be as broad as possible."

"And yet here I am," I sighed, "confining myself to a small island where a tiny population speaks an ancient and almost dead tongue."

"You don't know how important that work, that life is, Cousin," he encouraged. "But you will," he then smiled. "Could I presume on you though to host my family for the time being?"

"On an American aircraft carrier, surrounded by dragons," I smiled as well.

"I could not ask for better security," my cousin quipped.

"Well, let me call my son," I said, turning my head towards the bow and just thinking, _Spring_.

Sure enough, a black Night Fury was soon swooping around the port side of the flight deck and landing over the stern beside the helicopter.

"How'd you do that?" my cousin wondered in surprise, recognizing Spring probably for his now only slightly less than mature size.

"Tribal secret," I playfully replied.

"But Spring," I then said to him, "would you care to host our cousins for a while here?"

"Really?!" Gunnar's son, Jorge, replied next to us, for probably more than one reason.

"Spring is my adopted son," I introduced to Jorge, "so he is your cousin, once or twice removed, as well as perhaps a species or two removed as well. He is a little older than you, but he's able to speak both English and Old Norse. I'm sure you, your sister and he will have lots to talk about. He even plays soccer."

"Wow . . ." both children said in awe.

"And I know ship," Spring noted, " . . . flight and hangar decks, anyway."

"Kunne vi, Mamma, Pappa?" both children now pleaded to their parents.

"Jeg er ikke sikker . . ." Gunnar's wife, Jana, replied with a hesitant glance between her children and Spring.

"There are no better guardians than dragons," I assured. "Plus he can summon help from any other dragon with just a thought—that's our tribal secret, by the way."

"Vel da," Jana reluctantly said, turning towards her husband, "så mye som jeg ønsker å hjelpe deg med dine andre gjester og plikter, hadde jeg bedre opphold med disse unge," giving him what was evidently a goodbye kiss.

"Spring," I instructed him, "please abide by Misses Husa's wishes, but you may show them around. Substance is okay though, right?"

"She leading vigil of dragons for our island at bow, praying," he replied. "Important, but boring. Others watch and care for her."

"Very well," I accepted. "Carry on, Son."

"Yes, sir," Spring replied proudly in military fashion as he then turned and led Jorge, Jorge's older sister, Tanya, and their mother, Jana, off towards the port quarter elevator for a ride down to the hangar deck.

"I wouldn't be surprised if this trip doesn't inspire Spring towards military service," I sighed as they left. "Maybe I'll have to reconsider my dismissal of joint dragon ops with NATO. Spring might be happy as a clam onboard something like this carrier."

"No you won't, sir," Oleg chimed in behind us.

"Perhaps allow Norway the honour of joint ops with dragons, even perhaps enlistment or commissioning of them," my cousin offered in compromise. "Our forces have been clandestinely training your Dragon Knights at times for years. Your Substance even trained with select MJK and Coast Rangers once with her previous rider before your predecessors shut that down. Plus, Spring could be easily housed in the helicopter hangar of a Norwegian frigate, and we know how to keep things quiet."

"Sir, no," Oleg continued to protest to me.

"Let's see what can be achieved through negotiation," the baroness countermanded however. "Spring willing," she qualified, looking at me. "After all, both the FSK unit and this adventure are costing our treasury, and the Kingdom is giving us much."

"How much are they giving us?" I wondered, trying to keep my eye on the king as well, who was now surrounded by dragons further along the flight deck.

"You'll find out soon enough, Lance," the baroness replied with a subtle smile.

"But see how universal English can be?" my cousin smiled as we then glanced at his family now disappearing with Spring down on the port quarter elevator, with Jorge and Spring talking as they went. "A bridge even between species."

"Shouldn't you be defending and promoting Norwegian?" I wondered to him.

"Norway is a small country in a big world," he replied as we watched his family go, "but we will endure, just as your tribe has. Your people and their story are more of an inspiration to those of us in Norway who are aware of you than you know. That is half of why all this is happening.

"But I must go," Gunnar then sighed. "Have a schedule to keep, especially as the royal coordinator in all this."

"Royal coordinator?" I queried.

"Yes," he confirmed. "Even got a promotion for it. Haven't you noticed?" he added looking down at the two silver stars now on his collar. "I'm no longer just Brigader, but Generalmajor . . . thanks to you, cousin. I owe you."

"So _now_ I can call you 'General', right?" I asked.

"That would be acceptable," he concurred with a subtle smile.

"Glad I could help though," I continued. "Wish I'd been there for the ceremony."

"It was just a small affair," he seemed to dismiss, " . . . in the palace, with the king, as work on this whole thing started in earnest. His Majesty wanted someone who would loyally champion this effort, already knew of and had worked with you and your people, and wanted to ensure I had enough clout to see his wishes were carried out within the Defence Ministry. But it looks like I'll be dividing my time more between Ørland and Oslo from here onwards, perhaps even with Brussels."

"Hope you don't mind the change," I said almost with guilt as he turned, giving a nod towards the aircraft handler next to him who then rotated his right wand vertically.

"That is what life is about, Lance," he then assured, turning back to me. "Life and living things change, while wanting to stay the same as well. You give us our past once more, we give you your future. That is what is being celebrated here."

"Gunnar," the baroness now warned him, surprisingly using his first name as the helicopter's turbines began to whine once more, causing its rotor to start spinning.

"Min Dame," my cousin smiled in Norwegian, smartly saluting both her and then myself as I returned the salute.

I looked at the baroness now as my cousin held onto his uniform hat while reboarding the royal helicopter.

"What's going on?" I wondered to her as we watched a couple of crew in brown sweatshirts and helmets close the helicopter's side door and remove its wheel chocks while the aircraft handler took up his position in front of it once more.

"Just what you asked for," Jarldis replied with a cryptic smile.

We both stepped further back along with others around us, as the aircraft handler held up his right wand in front of him. The helicopter was further revved up in response, its rotors starting to loudly growl, whipping the surrounding air into a gale. As the handler then extending both his arms, waiving both his wands upwards at his sides; slowly, even carefully, the helicopter then lifted upwards off the flight deck, soon turning above us and flying off across the open sea towards the southeast.

Once again, I had that uncomfortable feeling of change within my stomach. What had I started here?

— — — — —

Soon enough, the baroness and I managed to catch up with the king, the Nadder elder continuing to accompany him.

"Ah, Lance," the monarch said, seeing me come beside him. "Your purple dragon—sorry, I don't know her name—is seeming to play quite the hostess for me, grunting to dragon after dragon as they then bow to me. It's truly amazing."

"Her chosen human name among us is, Fjallit, or 'Mountain', sir," I explained. "I couldn't begin to tell you or pronounce the dragon name she goes by. But the dragons believe in hospitality in their own way, just as we do."

"Well," he said, "do we have time for lunch onboard before we arrive at Dragons Island?"

"Of course, sir," I replied. "The Ward Room is this way—" I then began gesturing towards one of the principal hatchways into the island superstructure.

Fjallit interrupted me though, looking at me with her right eye and grunting fairly insistently, even though she surely knew I could neither understand her nor translate.

I just silently shrugged to her, even mildly throwing up my hands as the king looked back and forth between the two of us.

Fjallit then began regurgitating.

"Nei, nei!" I said in Norse, realizing why she was doing it and what she must have picked up on from the king and I, but really wishing she hadn't.

Fortunately, Fjallit stopped, even swallowing again. But then she grunted some more while alternately looking at both me and the king.

"What's going on?" the king asked, looking between his dragon escort and myself.

"Part of dragon hospitality," I said somewhat cautiously, looking at her, " . . . an ages old custom of honouring among them."

"Go on," the king invited.

I sighed, almost wincing as I figured out how to most appropriately describe it. "It likely began as with most animals, even ancient humans when fathers would bring food home to sustain pregnant and nursing mothers," I said. "But for dragons, it has grown to symbolize giving a part of themselves and their lives to another. They call it Giving Life—regurgitating a fish for another to eat. It is the highest form of tribute there is to them. They would roast it for you though in their mouths—mine did that for me, sterilizing it of practically all impurities. But well, it's just perhaps a difficult thing for Outsiders to accept and take in the way the dragons intend it."

To my surprise however, the king now smiled, even chuckling. "Lance," he said, "I've eaten with tribes around the world as a guest, even Lutefisk here. If you have done it, I am sure I can."

"But your suit," I warned.

"Perfect," he then welcomed. "I've been looking for a reason to change out of these clothes anyway . . . I just unfortunately haven't seemed to bring any," he then realized.

"Well," I said, glancing at Oleg with a subtle smile, "let us see what we can arrange."

"Wonderful," he agreed, then moving closer to me though. "Remember," he then whispered, "I have read the Journal, including the parts where Giving Life is described in detail."

— — — — —

Things then moved inside, with both the king and I briefly ducking down to the officers' quarters where we each changed clothes. I went back to my village attire, just with the military winter parka now, which provided more warmth than my Berker flying jacket did, as well as donning my badge of office around my neck. Substance and Rökkr were each wearing their straps of office, after all. The king changed into a Berker tunic Oleg had sourced from another villager since the king was a little taller than I, combined with polyester khaki pants from the ship's 'slop chest' or onboard store that could be easily washed, along with a military parka as well.

Before long though, we were on the hangar deck, allowing the king to greet our maimed and handicapped, as an impromptu luncheon table was set up for us in the midst of everything.

The mood changed though, slowing, as Fjallit resumed escorting the king, introducing him to each of our maimed veterans in turn. Fortunately, Roana was now present with us to provide full translation both ways as we passed both humans and dragons missing arms, legs, wings—even a head and neck in the case of our maimed Zippleback.

"These normally have two heads, right?" the king asked as we came to the Zippleback, who was in the act of Giving Life himself, feeding a large cod to his maimed Nadder companion, whose eyes were mostly closed, lying quite still on the deck.

"Yes, sir," Roana confirmed. "This is Einn or 'One', who was a two-headed Zippleback. He's pretty special," she now sniffed. "He is caring for his wounded companion, named Sjó or 'Sea', saying goodbye to him, as Sjó won't be returning north with us . . ."

The king now glanced at Roana as I now put a supportive arm around her from the side, and then looked back at the two dragons as Einn was trying to gently nudge the large cod into Sjó's partly-opened mouth.

"Let me help," His Majesty then said, stepping forward and stooping down. Without hesitation, he then grabbed the slimy, half-digested cod with his right hand as Einn now watched, while reaching his left hand in among the ailing Nadder's toothy mouth as he and a human villager gently opened Sjó's mouth to receive the cod. The Nadder's eyes opened some as he began moving his jaw a little, managing to chew the cod a few times before swallowing it.

"These two are coming to the island, right?" the king then said, still on his knees and not taking his eyes off the two dragons.

"Yes, sir," Roana answered. "They will be among the first ashore. Sjó even says he's determined to stick around for that."

"My kind, even my nation in the past, did this to you," the king then said, looking at Sjó. "Please bring my lunch to me here," he then said to us, even sitting down cross-legged directly on the rough deck. "I wish to dine with these dragons . . . to share with Einn a last meal with Sjó."

"Help me bring Treystu over here as well," Roana quietly asked me. "She and Salmei also deserve this honour."

Within a moment, I and several others were rolling Treystu on her padded dolly—two of them, actually, as her body was that long—over to the king, Sjó, and Einn. At the same time, Roana was quietly telling Salmei beside us what an important thing she and Treystu were now doing for our tribe in having lunch with the King of Norway, as Tor's wife, Arna, and their infant daughter remained with Salmei as well. "It'll give Salmei some purpose," my mate had whispered to me a moment before. "She is so lost, knowing Treystu is going."

Roana then took care of introducing Salmei and Treystu to His Majesty while Oleg just quietly brought bed pillows for all us humans to sit on. I initially hung back while Roana gently sat Salmei down between Treystu and the king, continuing to introduce them further, before she moved to sit on the king's other side along with Tor's wife, Arna, and making room a little for Fjallit to at least lower her massive head between them while Roana waived me to join beside herself as well.

Spring was still showing my cousin's family around somewhere, but Rökkr chose to join us for lunch. As with Miles' story circles, everyone else, both dragon and human, just gathered and sat in concentric rings radiating across the hangar deck around us as villagers, Navy and Outside Berker crew just began distributing fish, meat and drink in tribal fashion. No buffet lines this time. The father and grandfather he was, the king just paid special attention among Salmei, Treystu, Sjó, and Einn as we all began to eat—sandwiches for us, and fish for the dragons.

It was a quiet lunch at sea, in the hangar of an aircraft carrier, among a still primeval tribe of dragons and humans. But it was a meal of bonding, and unspoken farewells.

But then the king lightened the mood.

"Fjallit," he said looking up at her over his head, expecting Roana to translate, "just give me life, right here, raw . . . herring, if you have any."

The Nadder readily obliged, dropping a few regurgitated herring over his shoulder right into his lap—and he ate them . . . whole! With even a smile!

I just looked at him with slack-jawed amazement. He indeed seemed a braver man than I.

Roana just smiled at me though, quietly chuckling before whispering, "That is often how Scandinavians eat herring." The king just winked at me as she did.

So I basically felt I had no choice. "Fjallit, Rökkr," I said, "annat hvort ykkar hefur einhverjar síld?"

Unfortunately, they each regurgitated a few herring onto my lap, with Rökkr giving me a very smug look as I sighed and bravely proceeded to down them one by one in the same way, almost retching as I did initially. Thankfully, Roana decided to help me, eating some off my lap as well.

Even though I had been living as a Dragon Berker for a year now, this was one lunch I was barely able to keep down, much to the obvious amusement of Rökkr beside me.

_Spring would have helped me out here, at least gone easy on me,_ I silently thought with some irritation towards our Great Guardian.

_You asked,_ his eyes clearly seemed to convey back to me as he shrugged.

My awkward little episode seemed to put a brief smile on Salmei's face though. That made it all worth it.

— — — — —

"Jeg vil se dere begge på øya," the king said to Salmei at the end of lunch, excusing himself but promising to see them again later on the island as Roana translated, before rising to his feet again.

Tor and his wife Arna, along with their infant daughter, were all there to continue keeping Salmei company as I turned to leave with the king. The king gently pulled my mate aside however, whispering something to her with Roana subtly nodding before they parted.

"Anything going on?" I quietly wondered as she then rejoined me for a moment as the luncheon was breaking up.

"I need to prepare Treystu, Sjó, and the others for transport," Roana deflected though, seeming more subdued, but giving me a direct glance that told me she was both tired and not to press.

"How you doing?" I quietly asked instead, taking her into a loose embrace.

"Lunch was a nice respite," she replied.

"Hey," I whispered, drawing her in close against me, "I know you have been working hard, even overnight apparently, and I know what this is doing to you, even tearing you apart, inside. I want to do something for you."

"That you know," she sighed, "really know . . . that's enough for me, for now. I'll just take a raincheck for later—when I'll really need it . . . after they're gone."

I just looked at Roana in my arms.

"Go," she practically whispered. "Substance deserves to meet the king as well, even have him beside her as we arrive."

"Can't disagree with you," I said.

"Good," she quipped, causing us both to gently chuckle. "Love you," she then added, parting from me with a kiss.

"This isn't quite what I had in mind, planning this whole thing," I sighed, letting her go.

"Part of wearing the big cloak," she replied, "which I made sure was brought with us. You are wearing that, at least when we land on Berk itself."

"I love you," I sighed, moved, as I went to embrace her one more time.

"Lance . . ." she just whispered against my neck, barely holding it together.

Rökkr then grunted beside us, gesturing with his head across the crowded hangar towards the king who was making his way to an elevator platform escorted by Fjallit.

"Got it," I replied as Roana and I looked at each other again.

"See you later," my mate said, her right hand dropping and giving my rump a good goose followed by a slap.

"See you later," I agreed, smiling as I gently took that hand of hers, giving it a squeeze as well before letting it and her go.

I was wanting another vacation with Roana alone now as I rushed to catch up with the king. _Maybe a dip in Hiccup's hot springs on Dragon Island,_ I began musing to myself, _. . . if it's still there._

— — — — —

I barely caught the large aircraft elevator the king had stepped upon before it began rising to the flight deck above. Rökkr was apparently remaining behind on the hangar deck, presumably to help Roana with the logistics of preparing to move our maimed and handicapped once more.

Soon, the king and I were at the carrier's bow with Substance, accompanied by the more religious or observant among our dragon and human population who all had their heads raised and eyes closed in silent meditation. Even though there was sun overhead, we found ourselves surrounded by the persistent fog Dragon Island had long been famous for, even in the Journal, as the ship's horn now sounded its deep, resonant blasts at regular intervals.

"Welcomme, Mmajesty," Substance greeted, clearly sensing who her visitor was.

"How are you, Substance?" the king warmly replied, laying a hand on her neck over her strap of office.

"It been complicated with me, lately," she admitted. "Thannk you for joinning us though."

"You're most welcome," the king replied.

A moment of silence now passed among us, the ship seeming to part the fog as readily as it parted the sea before us. _Ffooooooooooooff_ _. . ._ the carrier's deep, steam foghorn sounded once more from its perch above the bridge in the distance behind us. The returning echo was unmistakable.

"Island near," Substance sensed, facing directly ahead.

"The fog ahead is a little thick. Can't see it yet," I noted.

The massive carrier then began to slow and turn to the left. As it did, the fog seemed to part, revealing the first rocky tops of some offshore sea stacks, along with a volcanic peak in the distance.

"There it is," I said, tracking it with my eyes off to our right now.

"We homme," my dragon simply noted.

She then raised her head, giving out a long roar—one that was picked up by dragon after dragon behind us, spreading across the ship. Dozens of able-bodied dragons, some with riders, then began taking to the air from the flight deck, as well as streaming out through the side ports of the hangar deck. Once again though, they were just swirling in a vortex around the ship.

"Lannce?" my dragon simply invited with a gesture of her head towards the saddle she was wearing.

"Majesty," I invited in turn with a gesture of my right hand towards her saddle as well, while Fjallit came up beside us, lowering her head to the deck.

"I think I will take advantage of my dragon escort's continued hospitality," he decided, turning towards her as I climbed on Substance. The king now clearly had his own dragon friend, perhaps even companion within our tribe. I knew the king's HMKG security contingent behind us was probably having quiet conniption fits at this point, but fortunately, several of our FSK and native riders were already showing up on their dragons, inviting the HMKG agents to climb on and ride with them. A Zippleback was even stepping forward, inviting the baroness to sit safely and securely on its central shoulder between its necks.

The king and I then just took to the skies onboard our dragons, soaring away from the carrier. At that point I realized I didn't have a radio with me, having fried my previous walkie-talkie in the sea the previous night. This was Berk though, and to paraphrase a popular movie I had seen in the last years of grad school, we, 'Didn't need no stinkin' radios.' We had dragons.

I simply mentally called a dragon, complete with an English-speaking FSK rider and a radio, up beside me with just a thought.

"Please keep in touch with the carrier and Marshal Control for me," I said as we flew. "I don't have a radio on me right now."

"Take mine, sir," the soldier offered, even unclipping and tossing his radio and its earpiece and mike towards me through the air between us. It was thrown a bit high and hard, but all I had to do was track it visually and reach upwards for it. Without my even consciously thinking, Substance was giving me a boost, even a slight tilt with a powerful thrust of her wings, and together, we caught it.

"You and I," I said to my dragon companion, "we're playing soccer together when we get back."

"Yess, we are," she agreed as the Dragon and Rider beside us now peeled away.

"How about goalie? Me on you?" I suggested, now clipping the radio to my military parka.

"You would never stay on me," she replied with a smile in her deep voice.

_Thank you, Substance,_ I thought to her though.

I was now just bathed in thoughts of gratitude from my dragon.

We were whole again, one, and it felt so good. So very good.

"This is Longship Marshal Control," I now heard on my radio however as soon as I clipped the earpiece to my left ear. "Anyone have a handle on Dragon Leader and Norge Prime? Are they airborne in the swarm? Captain would like to know. Over."

"Longship, this is Dragon Leader," I radioed back "Sorry I left without observing procedure. I have a radio now, Norge Prime is right beside me on a Nadder elder, and our HMKG and FSK are following, at the head of our swarm, over."

"Copy, Dragon Leader," I heard back. "Captain says you've earned ten demerits for that lapse—along with the twenty for your incident last night—but wishes you a good visit. Sea and wind are calm enough that we will be anchoring offshore, awaiting your return. Over."

"Copy, Longship," I sighed, shaking my head with a smile. "Does this mean I have to appear at Captain's Mast? Over," I added, knowing naval protocol and tradition.

There was a long pause before I heard, "Captain says since you outrank him, he'll give you a pass. But don't make a habit of it. Over."

"Thank you, Longship . . . and Captain," I replied, knowing he was overhearing all this. Then, there it was. "Dragon Leader and Norge Prime now approaching beach," I now radioed, seeing the island's north beach and the grassy bluffs and plain beyond it now emerge from the fog. "Dragon Leader out."

I began sensing a sadness within Substance beneath me. But having to concentrate on picking and focusing on a landing spot on the beach, I couldn't probe this feeling of hers further at the moment.

The shore of this island was now much as I had imagined it from reading the Journal though. The beach was more rocks and pebbles than sand, and not all that wide, running up against both grassy slopes and occasional cliffs of both grey rock and brown clay. Beyond the slopes and cliffs was a grassy plain, leading among mounds to the steep slope of the tall volcano beyond that dominated the island, as well as the sea stacks on the island's south side where Hiccup had fought his fabled battle with the Red Death dragon. We had arrived on the side of the island where Hiccup and his family had vacationed twice in the Journal, but try as I might, I could not see his fabled hot springs.

"We landing?" my dragon now queried gently turning on her own more by guess than anything else, interrupting my thoughts and visual searching. "Or should I just crash?"

"Sorry," I apologised, now picking and focusing on a safe spot on the beach while taking mental control of our flying, imagining wings flapping at my shoulders once more, while a tail balanced our flight behind. I had been flying on Substance for a year now, but since our dip in the sea the previous night, I continued to feel connected, even plugged into her, in ways I hadn't before. I was able to not just direct, but feel her wings flapping, as well as her quarter and tail fins spreading as we needed them to. They were like fingers spreading at the sides and base of an elongated spine now. I could even begin to perceive the wind lifting these fins, appreciating how Night Furies used them.

I just accepted these more intense sensations, allowing myself to feel, even become dragon. I found myself even becoming immersed in Substance's mindset—the seeming on/off, black and white logic and discipline that seemed to govern the lives and perspectives of dragons, tempered by an expansive, reaching awareness that simply transcended our human senses. I could detect other intelligences around me, both dragon and human, but could perceive no equivalent sense of the sea or island beneath us, other than the faint presence of the animals on or inside them.

_Lance . . ._ I sensed my dragon mentally say as my brain struggled to process and deal with these new awarenesses and feelings. _See for me . . . please . . ._

I refocused, having to stop exploring, even mentally tuning out much of what Substance was able to perceive, so I could concentrate on what my eyes were seeing, and guide both of us safely down upon that beach.

With a final few flaps of Substance's wings, we landed with a surprising softness, even gentleness.

"I feel sand," Substance then said. "What colour is it?"

"Mostly grey," I replied, "but with streaks of white, even a cream-coloured white."

"My kind," she said. "My people, their bones. They're here."

I looked at the sand we were standing on again. The battle that Hiccup never saw but vividly imagined now came to life in my mind. I could hear the roars, the screams of dragons along with the war cries of ancient soldiers, followed by the sounds of fires burning it all away in my mind as I looked at the white streaks within that sand.

I closed my eyes for a moment, shutting it all out.

"I sense it," I said, feeling compelled to open my eyes again, following those streaks of white as they stretched along the shore as the surf washed gently beside them.

"That what this place is to us," she simply replied.

I felt a quiet, overwhelming grief now.

Substance then turned her head towards the bluffs before us and issuing a sharp bark—one that seemed to echo endlessly along the vacant landscape. As she did, I tuned into her again, suddenly perceiving a wave emanating outwards, briefly sweeping across and tracing the contours of each rock and hill within sight, briefly outlining their shapes almost as a radar sweep would.

"That is how you see," I said, " . . . know where you are."

"I can vary frequency," she replied. "Some barks, grunts, you humans not hear. This one I wanted you to."

I now felt a surge of overwhelming sadness from Substance as well.

"Their echoes, the dragons . . . they're affecting you, too?" I asked.

"This place," she said, almost in a whisper, "I wannt to see it . . ." her deep voice breaking as she lowered her head, her clouded eyes trying to look at the white streaks in the sand before us. "I wannt to see-ee-ee . . ." she now wept, looking up again, her head slowly sweeping, vainly trying to perceive the grassy bluff and the rest of the island around us.

She then gave out a roar of anguished regret, of such deep pain.

"I know, Substance," I said, tears welling in my own eyes now, embracing her thick neck tightly as I laid my head upon hers. "I know . . ."

I could see and sense others now landing around us on that beach as I held Substance—both of us mourning the loss, the absence of her sight the one time she wanted it more than any other. No words could compensate or make up for it.

I just held her as she moaned for minutes as others just stood silently, respectfully around us.

"Substance . . ." I finally whispered to her, "remember Fury? In the Journal? She lost a freedom, the freedom to fly . . . right here. Something that meant just as much to her."

I felt my dragon raise her large head somewhat within my embrace, her moans diminishing.

"Hill in front of us . . ." she then said. "Describe it to me."

"It's covered in grass, tall green grass right now," I said, turning my head to look towards the nearby hill, "although I'm sure it will turn golden later, as Hiccup described it. It's at least as tall as your knees, maybe even shoulders. The wind is blowing across it, even up it at an angle, making the grass undulate and flow, like waves on an inclined sea."

"I wannt to touch it," she said.

So I guided her, standing beside her head with my right hand upon it, turning her towards the base of that grassy hill that protruded up from the beach at a sharp and distinct angle as others watched us. We both slowly walked in silence to it, our human and dragon feet making small indents and noises amid the pebbles and sand as we moved—the first to do so together in peace and companionship here in practically a thousand years.

"Here it is . . ." I finally said, slowing us both as the windblown grass almost seemed to reach out in welcome to Substance's broad, black snout—brushing it, kissing it, with such exquisite gentleness.

Substance pressed her snout further amid the tall, green grass, until she was touching the brown, clay-like dirt anchoring it to that hillside, breathing the subtle fragrances of earth and grass in deeply with her nostrils.

"So this what Valhalla smells like, feels like," she said.

"Yes, Substance," I confirmed with a tearful smile, " . . . it is."

— — — — —

The Twentieth Century then intruded with the beat of a helicopter's blades approaching in the distance at an angle to the shoreline from the east-northeast. I turned giving it an angry look, wishing it would just shut up and go away.

"Forgive the intrusion," the king then said near us, obviously seeing my expression. "But hopefully, you will find it worthwhile." The helicopter was now already drawing close as a few of our FSK with radios were now clearing a number of dragons and human villagers from a portion of the beach behind the king for it to land on.

"Substance," he then continued as both my dragon and I now turned to face him, "I don't quite know where, or how, to begin. I have read your tribe's Journal. I also know the history of my own kind and people well. What was committed here a thousand years ago . . . it was nothing less than genocide—an erasure of not just a species, but an entire genus, a branch of life's tree. My own family's line, as I told you at our meeting last fall at the lifeboat station, is Danish, not really Norse, Anglo-Saxon, or Gaelic, as your kind's killers were.

"But I feel responsible," he said with emotion now, "as surely as if my own father had given the order to eliminate your kind."

The dark blue royal helicopter now loudly interrupted us all, blowing up a stiff wash of air, sand and dust with its rotor in all directions as it landed, its blades soon slowing to a stop, with the king turning to look at it.

The helicopter's side door then opened. My cousin, Gunnar, stepped out first in his Air Force trench coat and hat, before turning and assisting first one cleric, wearing a black suit but with a purple shirt and white collar, and then another wearing a black cassock with a red sash around his somewhat ample waist, along with red cap, as well as red trim and buttons along the cassock's edges, completed with a medium-sized silver cross on a chain upon his chest. All of it unfortunately served to play him right into the Berker 'Dark Robe' stereotype however.

I didn't know where the king was going with all this now, but the presence of these clerics among our population, especially on this occasion, wasn't exactly feeling comfortable, even to me.

The king gestured with an outstretched hand for the two clerics to join beside him.

"Substance," the king resumed, gesturing for Roana to join him as well, who began translating his words not to Norse, but directly to Dragon in the loudest grunts she could, "and to all dragons," he said, looking around, "I realize there can be no peace, without forgiveness . . . My kind committed a great injustice, even a grave sin here, against your ancestors . . . against you—one that we did in ignorance and fear, but that we can make no excuse for.

"So I," he continued, "along with the Most Reverend Doctor Morecambe, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Cardinal Rafello, Diplomatic Envoy from the Vatican in Rome—both of whom have joined us here at my request—and myself, as both Monarch and head of the Church of Norway . . . all of us, Crown and Church, confess that our predecessors, and we ourselves, have been responsible for a grievous, even unforgivable wrong here."

I was silently stunned at what was now happening before us.

"But," the king then said, briefly glancing down, "we ask you for your forgiveness anyway . . . and for peace, and hopefully amity, between us."

The king himself then knelt, bowing his head before Substance, gesturing for the two senior clerics beside him to join him. Glancing uncomfortably at His Majesty, each of them then slowly did the same.

Substance then began moving forward towards the king and his guests as I stepped to the side, out of her way. She then issued several grunts, causing both Fjallit and Rökkr to come either side of her.

"This place ours," my dragon companion said firmly. "Not Norway, not even Berk. Ours. All others must have our permission to land here."

I took a deep breath as I heard her say this, not knowing how that would be possible.

"Henceforth, this island will be called Drager Øy again on all maps," the king readily replied, "being classified as a wildlife sanctuary, with a fifteen kilometre quarantine zone around it. It is already recognized as Ancestral Land under the Berk Sovereignty Treaty, but how you govern it will be your affair."

"Agreed," Substance replied as the king and the two clerics remained on their knees before the three assembled dragon elders. She then paused before speaking. "This place once our home, our haven. Then it became our hell. Unspeakable pain here . . ."

She stopped herself, lowering her head for a moment.

"But we forgive," she finally resumed. "Peace exists between Dragon and Outside now, for all time, starting here.

"To show true forgiveness," Substance continued, " . . . I accept Order of Saint Olaf, if you still offer it."

I was shocked, as was Roana as she glanced with surprise towards me.

"It be a bond between us," my dragon companion said, "between our past, present, and future—at highest level. In exchange, we declare you Dragon Guardian. You protect us, as we swear to protect you."

"Yes, Substance," the king then said, clearly moved as he bowed his head deeply before her. "I bow before you in acceptance," he added, making sure she could perceive the gesture he was making, as Substance then also bowed in kind.

The baroness just came up beside me, gripping my arm tightly, neither of us able to say a word.

Roana remained between the Dragon and Outside delegations as Substance and the king then stepped toward one another.

"Lannce . . ." my dragon said, calling me to her side, as the king then looked to an aide behind him to bring the enameled white, narrow Maltese cross with eight sharp points to it. A small rampant Norwegian lion up on its hind legs in a red circle was at the centre of the cross, all of it set upon an intricate gold badge, suspended from a broad chain made of equally intricate gold rectangles.

I never thought I would see Substance accept this, especially as I hadn't really had a chance to bring any of it up with her after my trip to Oslo.

I then personally helped His Majesty secure the medal, and its chain that had been specially elongated for Substance, around my dragon companion's thick neck over her own scarred leather strap of office, before the king stood in front of Substance once more as an aide handed him a ceremonial sword.

Although I knew it was perfectly safe, even a high honour, the sight of the Norwegian King holding any sword towards one of our dragons seemed to trigger a primal fear, even instinctive phobia within me—a confirmation, if there ever was one, that my blood was indeed Berker. I just found myself taking a breath as Substance bowed her head in total trust.

"I present thee, Substance, the Grand Cross of Saint Olaf, with Collar," the king then said, gently tapping the sword flat on each of her shoulders, "recognizing you as head of your nation, as we have recognized others, and a hero of the Norwegian people," saying it first in the English he knew Substance understood, before repeating it in Bokmål as Roana continued to translate to Dragon beside us.

When he was done, Substance then raised her head, saying, "Kneel, Majesty," with the king doing just that.

"I name you Dragon Guardian among us. Protector of all," she then said, before likewise repeating it in Dragon. Substance then carefully nudged the tip of her black snout against his nose as a great roaring and cheering rose up among everyone, dragon and human, around us.

"I'll make sure you get an appropriate enameled badge," I quietly assured the king as he rose up again, glancing down at the badge upon my chest.

His Majesty then just smiled, quietly shaking my hand before taking me into an embrace.

— — — — —

After Substance and I formally greeted and thanked the two clerics; with some difficulty, even the help of the village leathersmith, I then affixed the silver Star of Saint Olaf to the left front of Substance's leather strap of office, which went with the Grand Cross and was worn on the left breast.

Feeling very much outranked by Substance once more, I then turned for an embrace and moment with my mate. But Roana had already gone to check on the ailing among our dragons, who had been given front row places to witness the proceedings.

I turned again to notice that the healing, the forgiveness, was truly beginning as dragons and even human villagers began coming up to the king and the two clerics.

"Hey, Bro," I heard behind me though. "You left me behind."

"Oh, sorry, Bob," I sighed with guilt, turning to see him. "But I see you made it."

"Yeah, I just saw everyone grabbing rides on the flight deck, and so just went down and flagged a . . . red dragon," he said, trying to reach for the dragon's breed name. "Otherwise I would have been stuck on that carrier. But you guys need to make announcements as to what's going on—in English."

"Well, in case we don't," I replied, "we have one more stop after this, at the humans' old island. So when everyone starts taking off from the ship again, just be sure to join them. I'll try and remember to have an announcement made though. Just don't get left behind on this island."

"So, is there a bar here?" he then wondered, looking around. "It's been a long time since you and I had a drink in Langley. Long time since I even had one."

"Me, too," I agreed, "although I have been talked into a few tankards of mead back on the other island up north, during feasts and song fests."

Bob gave me a surprised look. "You? Partying? With others?" he said, amazed.

"There are things I should be doing," I deflected, beginning to excuse myself. "Being chief of the tribe now, it's a lot more responsibility than when I was just leading my team in Houston."

"And trying to evade your wife at times," he added, "by taking flights halfway across the country to see me, even though you said you hated flying."

"Don't need to do that anymore," I replied, half smiling.

"You've changed," he then said.

"More like my real self has come out of hiding," I decided, "even while I have to keep an entire tribe of humans and dragons hidden from the Outside. Go figure, eh?

"But maybe it's time you come out, too, Bob," I encouraged. "There's more to life than labs and looking into microscopes solving puzzles all the time. I should be helping Roana over there, because she's been working way too hard, especially pregnant. Perhaps consider this place, this trip, one big lab though. You want a guide? Let me call that dragon back to you, if it's available."

I just clearly thought of a Nightmare, and Bob. Sure enough, a red Nightmare showed up, landing right in front of us.

"They can read minds and intents," I said, "so you don't need to speak their language—although if you could, you'd be a linguistic as well as a molecular genius."

"Dragon, speak," Bob then turned and commanded, almost as if it was a dog.

The dragon grunted briefly in compliance with half-closed eyes as it looked at him.

"What's he saying?" my human friend asked.

"Haven't the foggiest," I shrugged.

"Hmmm," Bob said, his analytical mind already going to work. "Let's see if he comprehends and speaks a universal language and go from there." My friend then picked up and laid down a palm-sized rock, pointing to it.

The dragon made a simple grunt.

Bob then picked up a second rock, laying it down and pointing to both of them.

The dragon made three grunts, differing slightly in tone.

"Very interesting," Bob said, looking at the dragon while picking up yet another rock.

I took this as my excuse to exit, as once Bob got started on a puzzle, there was no stopping him. He was very useful to the CIA that way. But then I noticed the dragon stopping Bob with a grunt and placing its snout in the way of his hand laying that additional rock down. Carefully, the Nightmare was then nudging him back from a crouch onto his feet with its head, before gently extending a wing around him and ushering him off down the beach. Bob was now utterly stunned as they began walking together. The kaiju, the aliens were taking control this time, showing us humans what was important as the two then looked to the sky.

I was grateful to that Nightmare as I once again turned around to see Roana tending to our most ailing dragons.

The Nadder, Sjó, was already fading back to sleep as his one-headed Zippleback companion, Einn, watched over him, while next to them, Tor's family was gathered around young Salmei as she watched over her Nightmare, Treystu.

Roana was kneeling down beside Treystu's large, horned head as the dragon quietly shuddered, labouring to breathe as it murmured.

"Þat er kominn tími til at láta Treystu fara," my mate sadly but gently counseled the young girl, saying it was time to let her dragon go.

With tears in her eyes, the young blonde girl nodded, moving to embrace the dragon's toothy snout, the two looking bravely into each other's eyes before the dragon's eyes slowly closed and her breathing stopped.

Still embracing her dragon, Salmei then turned her head skyward and roared like I had never heard a human girl roar before. It was not a roar of anguish though, so much as seemingly one of transition, gratitude, even pride.

Einn now joined in the roar as well, but other dragons were not. Sjó had obviously also passed, but it was not a funeral yet.

I moved to join beside Roana as she was on her feet now once more, stepping back after disconnecting both Treystu and Sjó from the I.V. drips that had been helping them to last as long as they had.

"You did good," I gently praised my mate, taking her into my arms from behind.

"I know," Roana quietly accepted as she relaxed against me. "Almost lost both of them this morning, as well as keeping them stabilized through the night—along with you."

"Sorry," I gently replied.

Substance, Rökkr and Fjallit had now joined around us as well amid what could have been a festive time, but was very quiet. Perhaps it was appropriate though, given what was being acknowledged and commemorated on this island.

Still looking upon her lost dragon guardian, Salmei calmly grunted directly in Dragon.

"She is asking that Treystu and Sjó be cremated as they are, together, side by side," my mate translated, " . . . but not all the way. She's asking that their bones be left intact, so that all will see that dragons have existed here."

"A memorial," I observed.

"One for all dragons," my mate echoed.

"Which can fortunately still be mistaken for whales," I added.

"We shouldn't refuse this," Roana suggested.

"I know," I agreed.

Substance then raised her head beside us and began humming. The rest of our tribe, both dragon and human, proceeded to do the same, stepping back though as Rökkr, Fjallit, Einn and several other dragons of various breeds gathered around the bodies of the two dragons who had just passed. Sadly, I knew Einn could only emit sparks on his own—his other now missing head having once breathed the gas Zipplebacks do between their two heads. I could see his presence among the dragons who would be cremating his companion still meant everything to him however.

With a nod and grunt from Rökkr, the assembled dragons then breathed fire upon Treystu and Sjó as the rest of us hummed, our hums growing into skyward roars as the dead before us were consumed amid the flames. Rökkr ceased his fire, with the others stopping as well, earlier than usual, leaving the stark, intact skeletons of both the deceased dragons before them upon the beach.

I didn't think I could ever look upon a loved one like that. But somehow, next to us, Salmei was. Even Einn was calmly looking upon the skeleton of the Nadder he had kept company and nursed through the previous winter.

The bones before us were indeed a memorial now, one sacred to all of us. Even though we knew who they had been, and always would know—these bones now represented all who had been lost on this island. They would be our tribe's tomb of the unknown, our own addition to this island's history.

— — — — —

Several more of our infirm dragons passed by the time the sun set that evening, just as Substance had warned. But they had either requested or were given full cremation—their ashes left this time to be stirred and washed by wind and waves though, permitted to merge with the sands of their ancestors. Treystu and Sjó would go on, serving as our only memorial here.

It had been a sombre but meaningful day.

As Roana and her team turned to work into the darkness along with Rökkr and others to tend to and prepare our remaining invalid for return to the carrier, the baroness and king seemed to go off by themselves into immediate further negotiations over our tribe's status and immediate future.

I found myself just wandering the beach alone among the crowd, finally seeing my dragon companion, sitting upright equally alone on the beach, still attired in her newly-awarded finery.

"So, how does it feel to be an honoured daughter of Norway now?" I asked, sitting down on the beach next to her.

"Complete," she said. "No longer warring or hiding in battle that has lasted a thousand years . . . even longer for my kind."

"I think we still have to hide for now," I replied.

"I know," she agreed. "But for first time, I welcome Norway, even Christians, within me. I see all of us as one."

"That's saying something," I noted.

"Especially for blind dragon," she quipped.

I now shifted to lean against her erect right foreleg as her wing gently wrapped around me. My head brushed against that new chain of hers as I turned to look at that medal dangling beneath.

"Why did you accept, even ask for the Cross of Saint Olaf?" I then wondered, still looking at it.

"To not to," she replied, "would have been to maintain divide, rather than seal it. To truly forgive, wronged have to cross divide, embracing that which is most sacred to aggressors. We, my kind, had to forgive even Olaf—accept his cross. Your kind, your half of tribe, must, too."

"Roana, some of us, might still have a bit of a problem with that," I sighed.

"Another reason why I did," my dragon replied, "so they can also."

"At least I was born into that world," I noted.

"The bridge we need," she said. "But you best able to accept cross."

"Will I be awarded it?" I wondered.

"Yes," my dragon confirmed.

"How do you know? Through the king?" I queried.

"No," she replied. "Baroness. She been asking me, praying directly, mind-to-mind, for days . . . even weeks. King wanted this, and it strengthen tribe's position in dealing with ministries. As Norwegian honoured, government and ministries have harder time refusing us. Puts them in clear opposition to king if they do."

"Politics . . ." I sighed.

"Politics," my dragon agreed.

Roana and Rökkr now joined us.

"Well, we're almost ready to go," my mate sighed, sitting down and almost collapsing against me. "A lot of our invalid dragons just kept wearing their cargo netting anyway. We didn't have much of a chance to take it off."

"We stay," Substance countermanded though, staring across the dark, calm sea before us, the lights of the carrier visible off in the distance. "See new dawn for all of us from here. But Rökkr, I, give you two something."

"What?" both Roana and I wondered out loud together at the same time.

"Climb on us," my dragon invited.

— — — — —

Soon, Roana and I were airborne on our dragons, heading up beyond the grassy bluffs over the mounded plain above the beach. At Substance's recommendation, I was now carrying a torch, even though it was blown out for the moment by our flight. I simply got a surprised Tor to toss it up as Substance and I passed overhead, knowing that between us, my dragon and I would not miss.

Rökkr and Roana were now leading us though in the darkness, with Rökkr seeming to know exactly where he was going over the pitch black plain under a moonless, starry sky. Substance was keeping almost perfect position just off Rökkr's left rear. The two now turned tightly as one, spiraling us down around a distinctly warm, even steamy, column of air.

I felt a thud as Substance now landed us without my aid on a flat place next to one mound amid the darkness, still in the exact same position relative to Rökkr.

"Let me light torch," my dragon said as I could now hear a distinct gentle bubbling near us.

I held the torch in front of her mouth as I was told. She puffed a brief blue flame to re-light it before I raised it above our heads, and there it was . . . Hiccup's hot springs, right next to us on our left.

"From us, to you," Substance offered.

"It is your island," I couldn't help but smile. "But thank you."

"I'll fall asleep in that pool," Roana sighed as she dismounted from her dragon.

Rökkr then turned his head towards her, grunting in response, but then taking off again into the air as soon as Roana was clear of him.

"Where's he going?" I wondered.

"To collect and bring a full camp to us," my mate replied as she already began stripping her clothes off. "He wants us to enjoy spending the night up here. His surprise this time," she added.

"Our surprise," Substance countered though, "and our gift, to both of you, for all you do for us . . . for dragonkind."

I couldn't help but smile again as I began stripping out myself, tossing aside my parka and tunic with no problem. But when it came to my pants though, I strangely hesitated, as if I was feeling something different.

"What is it?" my mate wondered, already slipping her nude and pregnant self into the pool at its edge.

"I . . . I," I stammered with a mixture of confusion and wonder, "I could have sworn . . . No," I then said, shaking my head.

"What?" Roana repeated, now sitting in the gently steaming waters up to her neck at the edge of the pool.

"For an instant," I said in disbelief, "it felt like . . . like I had a rig—a metal, wooden and leather rig on the end of my left leg." I then dropped my pants to see with relief that my own leg was still there.

"Well, Hiccup's flesh and blood has waited a long time to get back into this pool," my mate suggested. "Can you blame him for wanting to join in himself?"

"No . . ." I found myself accepting with a smile as I shed my socks now and slid into the pool beside Roana. "No I couldn't."

"Ahem . . . Lannce," my dragon said, still waiting fully tacked up with even her medal and chain, beside the pool.

"Oh. Sorry, Substance," I apologised, hefting myself out of the warm water into the cold night air and untacking my dragon as fast as possible so I could get right back into that pool again.

A moment later, Rökkr returned with a couple rolls of camping gear, with me untacking him as well so Roana wouldn't have to—the four of us then settling blissfully into that pool.

While hating to look a proverbial gift horse in the mouth, "How come we're the only ones in this pool?" I nonetheless found myself asking as Roana was now practically dozing in my arms.

"It dragons' pool. Our territory," Substance replied, her eyes closed as she likewise relaxed against Rökkr. "We give it to our most revered first, as gift. Without you, we not even be here. But we already taking requests from others—even make list.

"Rest though. Enjoy," she encouraged, as I felt both their tails brace underneath against my feet, ensuring Roana and I would not slip under the water's surface no matter how sleepy we got.

"Thank you . . ." I sighed to both our dragons as I just let go of everything, except for my mate.

"Hiccup . . ." Roana now mumbled in her sleep against me in that pool.

I cracked open an eye, giving her a sideways glance. Somehow, I now had the feeling we _really_ weren't alone there in that pool, or even alone inside our bodies right then.

But then again, the hot springs were that good . . . evidently even to those who already lived in heaven.

I went back to letting go though, my eyes closing, my mind drifting as I felt my head tilt a little, my lips coming to rest against Roana's forehead with my nose just above her golden hair. Instinctively, I gently kissed that forehead, almost briefly feeling a narrow, studded leather band beneath my lips, before it seemed to be morphing, at least in my mind, into two large separate braids accompanied by two smaller ones, her head itself feeling as if it was changing shape from rounder to narrower.

_Hiccup, you devil . . ._ I smiled to myself. The warm waters and steamy vapours were indeed seeming to soothe away even the barriers of time itself.

Whatever it was—reality, contact with the world of Spirit, or the hazy beginnings of a dream—I treasured it now, I just treasured it. Love itself just gently surged within me as I embraced my mate within my arms, cradling her against me on my lap.

It only felt right to share this bliss, this surpassing and relaxing joy . . . with even our ancestors.


	47. Chapter 47

I woke up nestled with Roana, hearing the soft patter of rain around us. Yet both my mate and I were warm, and completely dry.

We were lying together in a sleeping bag next to the hot springs—on a mattress pad no less, safe and secure in between two Night Furies lying on either side with their wings spread over us. Their heads were resting on the ground but their eyes were open. Rain didn't seem to affect them in the slightest. With their thick, leathery hides, I guess that wasn't really surprising. They just knew we humans didn't like getting rained on, so it was another thing dragons were willing to do in protecting and caring for us.

Shifting a little against Roana, I didn't know how we got here, out of the hot springs, but I relished it for a moment longer as I took her back into my embrace.

"Lance . . ." I both heard and felt breathed against me.

"Glad you're not still channelling Astrid or Ruffnut anymore," I smiled.

"Well I did hear you mumbling both their names as Rökkr and I moved you, dead to the world, out of the pool in the wee hours and into this bag," she smiled. "Even your left leg was useless, but my rear end had been sitting on it so long, it was likely beyond numb or asleep."

"Makes me think of how special not just this place is, but even this life itself must be," I mused, "if spirits want to crash the party here."

"You're special," Roana said to my surprise.

"Thanks," I accepted as I looked at her. "You are, too . . . but why?"

"Our dragons are right," she replied, now extending her bare arms around my neck amid the shelter they continued to provide around us. "No one else has brought us here in a thousand years. But you did."

"Not without help," I qualified, " . . . a lot of it."

"But you did it," Roana gently maintained as she lay against me. "No one else. Not me, not the dozens of chiefs before you, just you." She now gently shook her head as her eyes misted. "You have no idea what you've done here."

We just took each other into a kiss and embrace . . . deep ones. Roana then briefly grimaced though before shifting to comfortably rest on her back to better accommodate the growing bulge at her abdomen now, as I remained against her side.

"I'm sorry," she sighed.

"No," I warmly assured. "I love you, every step of the way here."

Dragon roars then sounded, off in the distance. Rökkr gave out a few roars in reply above and in front of our heads, looking a little annoyed. But then again, Night Furies looked fairly annoyed most of the time anyway.

"Dragon Guardians are saying they're starting to move our tribe back to the carrier," my mate translated. "Rökkr is telling them you and I are just waking up and will be along when we're ready—as in don't rush us."

"Guarding our peace and quiet as fiercely as you guard our lives, eh, buddy?" I smiled, glancing up at Rökkr.

"Yesss . . ." he replied with a deep, drawn out hiss. "Rrr-rro . . ." he stammered before switching to grunts.

"He says that I've been working too hard," my mate picked up. "That I need a rest, for our child as much as myself."

"He's guarding you well," I had to agree.

"Well, as much as I'd like to," Roana sighed, "I can't keep a whole tribe, a nation beyond that, even an aircraft carrier and its entire naval task force waiting."

"You could try," I encouraged, "even for a few moments more."

"Dragon Leader, Dragon Leader, this is Longship. Over," we then heard from Roana's radio, which was still on while I had evidently switched mine off.

"That would seem to, 'tie it,' as they say," my mate sighed, beginning to prop herself up on her elbows with some difficulty.

I just reached across Roana, grabbing the radio amid her clothing on the far side before bringing it to me and depressing its transmit button. "Longship, this is Dragon Leader," I replied. "Swarm commencing return. We will be last aboard. Will check in when we're airborne. Dragon Leader out."

Rökkr then turned his head, grabbing the radio out of my hand by its rubber antenna with his toothless gums. Then, flipping it amid his jaws as he deployed his teeth, he gave the radio one firm crunch, splintering it into a hundred pieces before spitting it out away from us.

"Hadn't meant for you to go that far, buddy," I said, looking at him, " . . . but thanks."

He just replied with a snort of satisfaction.

"We should go though," Roana said, finally sitting upright next to me in our sleeping bag while our two Night Furies continued to shield us from the soft rain.

"We bring you back here, soon," Substance assured.

"And you're taking today off," I added to my mate. "Enjoying the cruise to Old Berk, with us. Anders can handle everything else today."

"See how special you are to me?" she smiled.

— — — — —

Before long, Roana and I were dressed once again in our village clothing and military parkas. I then went around, picking up all the pieces of the broken radio next to the hot springs. Didn't want to litter the place, after all. Finally, we were flying once again on our Night Furies and soon landing back down at the beach. Dozens of dragons and humans were already at work there, ferrying everything from villagers and wounded comrades to barbecue barrel grills and other equipment into the air and back out to our carrier. The FSK were smoothly rigging and checking slings around our maimed tribal members and cargo alike, while native Riders called in dragons—some with Riders, some without—who then hovered while picking up the slings held up for them with their claws, before flying off once more.

Everything seemed to be running so efficiently I felt I was hardly needed. I even feared that I'd be interrupting the smooth functioning of it all if I said anything.

I spotted Spring nearby however. He was alone and seemingly looking for someone . . . just not me apparently.

Leaving Roana as she turned to check on a maimed dragon anyway, "Sorry we took off for the hot springs without finding you last night," I apologised coming up to my Night Fury son. "Where did you spend the night?"

"Host Husas, as you say," he simply replied, still looking off in another direction. "Spent night on carrier. Jorge get his family to sleep with me in hangar."

"Where are they?" I wondered, not seeing them with him.

"Brought them here again this morning, _on_ FSK dragons," he quickly emphasized. "Even General Husa wanted to try dragon ride. He had to go though." Spring then grunted what must have been a dragon's name as he continued, "—Nightmare host rest of them now while Tor tell me to find you as O'Connell want to see you. You in trouble again, turning off radio. I find you now, feel O'Connell and Garrison, but not see them in crowd."

"Why didn't you just mentally tell Substance or Rökkr if Tor and O'Connell wanted to see me?" I queried.

"Substance constantly praying in thanks for being here," he answered, seemingly with some exasperation. "Won't 'tune in', hear me. Rökkr mind-tell me don't disturb you, for Roana."

"I'd better turn on my radio," I sighed with guilt, realizing it was just where I left it, clipped to my parka. "Bad chief. But how did Tor find or recognize you?"

"Me FSK," he replied to my surprise, gesturing with his head to a new olive green sash he was wearing around his neck with gold royal beret cyphers on each side of it, "although I prefer MJK or Coast Ranger KJK. They have ships."

"Wait, they drafted you?" I almost stammered in surprise.

"Tor say we figure out later," my Night Fury son replied, still looking past me. "But I speak English, Norse and Dragon, so I help Tor as assistant. Did so while you gone to Oslo few moons ago. He ask my help again yesterday, give me sash to make me official. Translate Dragon and Norse for him when needed.

"But there O'Connell," he then gestured through the crowd, seeing him on Garrison. "Go see. He has news for you."

"News?" I interjected.

"Tor, Jorge and Tanya all calling me now," Spring continued though, already turning away from me. "Told them to mind-call when need me. Easier than radio. 'Scuze me, Father."

I was left just slack-jawed as my dragon son made his way on paw back through the crowd of humans and other dragons. Spring was admittedly a dragon teenager when I met and adopted him, but less than a year on it was becoming clear I was starting to lose him to adulthood, even to the possibility of service with the Norwegian military it seemed.

_Just don't get me in trouble with Tanya and Jorge's mother, Spring,_ I remembered to mind-call to him as he disappeared amid everyone else. _I'm in enough trouble as it is._

Being human, I couldn't perceive a mental acknowledgment from him, but knowing he could perceive me, I just thought, _Carry on, Son,_ to him as I turned toward where he had gestured O'Connell was, waiting to talk with me.

As I walked, I reluctantly switched the radio clipped to my jacket on, putting its earpiece around my ear once more.

Hearing nothing on the primary channel . . . "Longship, Longship, this is Dragon Chief, over," I then radioed.

"Dragon Chief, Longship. Go ahead, over," the reply came, clearly putting the onus on me.

"Checking in from the beach. My apologies, had to find another radio," I fudged. "The one I was using had . . . dragon trouble. Remaining on beach for now though, and available on this frequency as needed, over."

"Copy that, Dragon Chief," the reply came back. "Captain said to tell you when you checked in again that you're up to sixty demerits now, including going AWOL on shore leave without checking in last night. But your diplomatic immunity as a head of state is still intact. Over."

I could have chalked the AWOL issue to our dragons as well, or that the entire visit was at our, even my discretion. Heck, even my dip in the sea was just forcing Substance to deal with her inner blockages. It was all the dragons' fault, really. Why should I take this heat for them?

But I decided not to. Life back home on our island up north was seeming sooo much easier now.

"Copy, Longship," I sighed. "Apologies to the captain, and everyone else. Dragon Chief available . . . but out."

I now trudged along the rock and sand beach, seeing O'Connell astride his dragon head and shoulders above everyone else. Curiously, Ilsa didn't seem to be with him at the moment. I just braced myself for whatever this 'news' of his turned out to be, wondering if this day could get any worse or more full of surprises than it already was.

"Miles!" I said, hailing him through the somewhat thinning crowd. "Tor said through Spring that you wanted to see me."

"Good young recruit, that son of yours," O'Connell praised, astride Garrison as I approached him.

"So you're in on that, too, eh?" I surmised.

"As I told Lieutenant Tor, Spring is officer material," Miles replied. "Smart as a whip, an able organizer, even leader, and perceptive as all get-out."

"You worked with Spring, while Roana and I were gone to Oslo a while back?" I queried.

"Tor came to me, sir," Miles replied, "saying Substance and Rökkr were a little intimidating."

"Most senior Dragon Guardians seem to be that way," I half-smiled. "Must be part of the job description. Ol' Árvekni, the previous Great Guardian, was certainly like that."

"Tor was wondering if I could translate Dragon for him, since I spoke English, and he wasn't understanding Old Norse," Miles continued. "But I said I was barely beginning to learn Dragon myself. When I told him there was another dragon who was able to speak both Norse and English though, and that he was your adopted son, and with him recalling it as well—that was all it took."

"You think I should let Spring join the military?" I sighed, folding my arms and cutting to the chase. "Even the Norwegian military?"

"I've seen it before, sir," the retired but still young Chief Petty Officer replied, "among both midshipmen and enlisted recruits I've worked with, even in myself. That thirst for adventure, meaning, making a difference . . . all while seeing a wider world. Your son's been to the Outside once before. We talked some while you were in Oslo, with him asking me about power lines and transmission towers, even though he was telling me his father got killed among them."

"Spring has to remain hidden though," I replied.

"He knows that, sir," Miles agreed, "and knows how important that is. But he also knows there is a world, even just Norway, beyond that island. Talking with him again a little while ago this morning here, he doesn't want to go back to living just there, guarding that one solitary rock against trespassers . . . some of the rest of us don't either."

"Miles . . . ?" I now queried.

"Sir," he now said carefully, "your own Substance said it yesterday—the dragons are reclaiming this island. Even last night, as Garrison, Ilsa and I bedded down in that cave behind me," he said, glancing back with his head, "Ilsa told me that some of the dragons . . . they're wanting to stay."

"They can't live here unguarded, without us," I warned.

"That's what I said," O'Connell agreed. "But then, Ilsa just looked at me—you know, the way wives do . . . and I couldn't disagree with her. Heck, even Garrison here was looking at me."

"Wait . . ." I hesitantly said, beginning to put two and two together.

"Ilsa and I, even Garrison," he continued, "will keep the dragons who stay here safe. I still have one hand to use a radio with when we need to call for something, at least for boats to intercept encroachers here. You think dragons could call for that?"

"Miles . . ." I now said with mixed feelings.

"The dragons want to continue honouring their own, their fallen here," he said, "the way any warrior would, as well as making the sacrifice of their ancestors mean something more, now that they can."

Ilsa now came out of the cave, joining us.

"This is our home, our calling, Chief," she said, looking at her husband while talking to me, "among the dragons, vhere they need us."

"Those caves up north are getting crowded anyway," O'Connell added. "Been that way for sometime, from what I've been told."

"Can't talk you or the dragons out of this?" I queried.

"Anymore than you could Substance," Ilsa replied.

"I could lose her to this," I sighed regretfully.

"No, you von't" Ilsa assured, putting her arm around her husband from his right side, as he remained perched and strapped in on Garrison's saddle. "She vill stay vith you. I know she vill."

"But I'm losing you two," I noted.

"Ve vill be just a dragon ride avay," she smiled.

"You're doing it for the hot springs," I half-smiled as well, " . . . at least in part."

"And for ze peace and quiet," Ilsa added, "ze more moderate veather, and plenty of dragon company . . . all in a nice Valhalla, vhere my Miles can continue healing, inside as much as out."

"The world owes me this," he quietly agreed.

I merely nodded my head now.

"And," he added, "I want to understand, even speak Dragon, fluently, before I die."

"Will you be joining the rest of us over on old Berk for the big celebration?" I wondered.

"We'll be there, sir," O'Connell confirmed. "I'll just get a squad of FSK started, who are ready to set us up here with radios, power, wind generators and the like—all just waiting on your okay."

"And I've even picked out our home in there," Ilsa added, glancing back towards the cave entrance.

"I'll miss you," I regretfully said, "all three of you."

"The hot springs, and us, will always be waiting, sir," Miles smiled.

"You have my approval, Chief," I then sighed with a smile as well. "Coordinate what you need with Tor and the Barony."

"Thank you, sir," Miles replied, extending his one remaining left arm towards me as both he and Ilsa then took me into a grateful embrace. Even Garrison was turning his long head to nudge me from behind.

"Thought of a cover though?" I wondered, parting from them.

"Ornithologists, sir," he replied as we all straightened up again. "We'll just be a couple living on the island, authorized by the Barony to study the native bird life, undisturbed, over the long term—even living in the caves to minimize that disturbance."

"Ah, there you are," I now heard Roana say as she approached behind me.

"Could have used the radio," I said, turning towards her as I patted it on my parka.

"Rökkr crunched mine, if you remember," she replied. "Didn't need one anyway—had a dragon who could locate and even guide me to you much faster. But it wasn't really you I was looking for. Now Miles," she then said to him, "there are several maimed dragons who want to stay—"

"Wait, you knew about him and the dragons staying?" I interrupted.

"Dragons told me," my mate replied. "Grunt of it has been spreading all morning among them. Most of them are coming back with us though. Now Miles . . ." she began again, suddenly interrupting herself though as her eyes went wide before she bent forward, clutching her swollen abdomen. "Oh gods . . ." she then grimaced, her right hand instinctively reaching and clutching tightly to my arm.

"What is it?" I said with concern, moving to support her.

"I think my water just broke," she now said with fear. "I-I'm going into labour—ohhh!" she grimaced again, leaning against me for support.

"But you can't be, not yet," I said.

"I know," she replied, beginning to breathe hard. "It's premature. Get me back to the ship, Lance, now."

"Rökkr!" I said without even looking at him as he rushed up beside us. I didn't know where Substance was at the moment, but that was the least of my worries.

"Can't—I can't sit on him, with my legs apart," Roana strained to say, puffing hard now to postpone labour, as she had no doubt coached others to in the past.

"Rökkr, the royal helicopter," I said, continuing to hold my mate up beside me.

"Gonnne," he replied, swiftly looking around and even offshore towards the carrier. "Laay herr onn back," he then said, gesturing to his back. "Hollld herr. Youu clip to saddle."

"Got it," I said, as Ilsa and I both rushed to pick up Roana and lay her on Rökkr's back behind his saddle, before I moved to lay myself down against her on the other side of his exposed vertebrae, while clipping the strap at the rear of Rökkr's saddle around both of us—the same one I had used my very first trip with both of them seemingly so long ago.

"Go!" I urged Rökkr.

His wings rapidly spread on either side of Roana and I before he launched us all into the sky.

"Longship, Longship," I now radioed via my earpiece and mike, holding Roana tightly with one arm while depressing the transmit button on my walkie-talkie with the other hand. "This is Dragon Chief, declaring an emergency, over."

"Go ahead, Chief," the reply came back.

"My mate, Roana, has gone into premature labour," I radioed. "We are airborne on her Night Fury and en route back to the ship. Prepare to receive us, and have Doctor Marta Jorgenson standing by. Over."

"Copy, Dragon Chief," the carrier's Marshal Control radioed back. "Land on Starboard Aft Elevator—the one directly abaft the island. Med Team will be there to receive you. Doctor Jorgenson being located. Over."

"Copy," I radioed back. "Standing by on this frequency. Out."

Roana was now puffing hard. "Can't push. Can't push," she was coaching herself. "Gods, Lance. Help me . . ."

"I'm here," I assured, holding her tightly.

"Our baby—" she said.

"Will be alright," I assured, even though we both knew the danger of the situation.

"Lance!" she grimaced, instinctively rolling from her side towards her back, overwhelmed with labour pain.

"Rökkr!" I warned as he was already tilting my way in the air, helping to roll Roana back towards me as I held onto her tightly on his back between his large, furiously beating black wings. I now also hooked my right leg through and around his vertebrae to help keep us in place, knowing that the thin leather strap from his saddle would hold me but not Roana and our child as well. I was prepared to take a dive though—a long and perhaps fatal one with my mate, if it came to that.

"Alllmmossst thheerre," Rökkr said in his deep dragon voice as I felt us beginning to descend now. His wings expanded, braking us in the air.

"Rökkr, land on the elevator behind the island, right side of the ship," I directed.

"Knnoww 'starrboarrd'," he replied with his thick dragon accent. "Drragonns cann hearr rradio."

"That's right," I now remembered. "Substance once told me that."

He then banked as he kept Roana and I balanced in the middle of his back. I now saw the carrier's grey mast and island beyond his right wing before feeling a firm thud as the helmeted heads of the carrier's medics quickly gathered around us. The AAOOOOOGAH's of warning klaxons then blared as the platform we were on was already being lowered.

"Get her onto the gurney!" I then heard one of the medics say as jacketed arms reached across me even before I could even begin moving out of the way.

"Lance, don't you disappear!" Roana grimaced as she was moved, grabbing and clutching my right hand with a determined grip.

"I'm right here," I calmly assured, while nervously glancing around us to see if Marta was around.

Fortunately her head appeared beyond the edge of the elevator as we arrived at the hangar deck.

"Hold it!" she commanded as she stepped up on the still descending platform, rushing to Roana's side, taking a syringe and plunging it into my mate's shoulder at the base of her neck before anything else.

"Alright, move her to Sick Bay," Marta then said, staying with Roana on one side as I remained beside my mate on the other. The gurney she was on was then rapidly hand-carried across the rough-surfaced hangar deck by four medics around us. "You know vhat to do, Roana," Marta coached. "Continue the quick breaths."

"Delay labour," Roana concurred, just looking to the ceiling and continuing her quick puffing. "Lance stays with me though," she directed.

"Of course," Marta agreed, giving me a quick glance across Roana.

— — — — —

Soon, we were rapidly negotiating some wide side corridors off the hangar deck, with a lead medic barking, "Make a hole! Make a hole!" to others in front of us as we went.

Finally we arrived through a set of double hatchway doors in a triage unit of the ship's Sick Bay.

"Move her onto that bed," Marta directed with a nod as several ward corpsmen moved in among the flight deck medics.

"Lift her on three," one of them said as I moved my hands under Roana's back and rear to help as well. "One. Two. Three," he added as we shifted her from gurney to bed, all while she continued her short intense puffs.

"Strip her out of her clothes," Marta directed as she was donning a surgical smock and cap. I helped relieve Roana of her parka, but then her hand reached and gripped my right hand once more as another wave of labour pain almost doubled her into a ball. "AAAAAAHHH!" she cried out. "No!" she then quietly roared with determination, almost seeming to push back against the overwhelming urge to give birth, even pushing the baby back into her womb.

"Lance," she then said, looking at me, seemingly on a knife-edge between determination and desperation.

"We will make it," I said to her with equal determination as others worked rapidly around us in almost a blur. "All three of us."

That brought a brief smile of relief to Roana's now sweaty face, as a hospital gown was now drawn around her.

"Lance . . ." she breathed, her smile growing even broader as she seemed to gain a respite from her battle for the moment.

I looked up to see Marta withdrawing another syringe, presuming that was the real source of Roana's relief.

"Gentlemen," Marta then said to the rest of the all-male Sick Bay staff, "I presume this ship does not have an incubator. So now that our patient is stabilized for a moment, I vill show you how to build one. You, you and you, come with me," she said to several of the staff, leading them away to a supply room.

"Thank you, Ran . . ." Roana breathed, looking up with tears in her eyes. My mate was right. As a bush doctor who had already dealt with difficult births in the most primitive of conditions, Marta was indeed a heaven-sent blessing, courtesy of our past village physician.

"Lance . . ." my mate then breathed again, gently this time, before drawing me into a kiss.

"You are feeling better," I remarked with some surprise as our lips parted.

"I am feeling wonderful for the moment," she sighed, "but the effect will soon wear off. I just want you with me, no matter what happens. And I promise, I will not be like Astrid when—"

"We deliver our baby safe and sound," I interrupted.

"That's why I need you," she sniffed. "Substance," she then remembered. "We left her on the island."

"Rökkr, make sure Substance, and everyone else, are brought back safe and sound. Get Tor and Spring to help you make it happen," I replied almost in a whisper, smiling at Roana. "It is done," I assured her.

"You are a master of our ways," she smiled in turn, now resting her head upon her bed pillow, even seeming to relax. "Every bit as much as your ancestor was."

"I was taught by the best," I smiled in turn, " . . . the absolute best."

— — — — —

A short time later, a rectangular plastic storage tub was wheeled near us on a surgical cart, complete with an electric warming pad, towels, oxygen canisters and tubing, and even a clear plastic lid.

"Marta . . ." Roana sighed with deep appreciation, catching a glimpse of the contraption.

"Ve vere lucky here," Marta assured, snapping on a pair of surgical gloves. "You should have seen vhat I've had to make these out of in the bush. But I only use them as back-up."

"Back-up?" I said in surprise.

"In case emergency treatment or surgery is needed," she calmly replied. "The absolute best place for a preemie is against the body, even the skin of its mother or father. That is where I want yours to be, as soon as it's born. The rest of the medical establishment will catch up with that, someday. Tribal wisdom I learned, backed up with plenty of observation and experience."

That brought a slight smile to Roana's face and seemed to briefly relax her further.

"Now, it's your turn," Marta continued. "The drugs should be vearing off. I don't believe in any more than minimal doses and delays in these cases."

"They are," my mate replied, her smile beginning to diminish again though as we all began bracing ourselves for delivery. "But thank you, Marta."

"I have the easy part in all this," our village physician assured. "Do you vant an epidural though?"

"No," my mate decided. "I'm already concerned enough about what you've had to give me so far to buy time. I don't want to put the baby at any further risk."

"Anything you say, Doctor," Marta smiled as she now donned a surgical mask. "I'm guessing you've done this before, in the village?"

"With dragons, mostly," my mate replied, readying herself as well for what we all knew was coming. "Just premature egg deliveries though—much easier. But I assisted Ran a couple times with villager births, even standing in for him once when a dragon returned with a seriously injured rider.

"Lance . . ." Roana then said though, turning her gaze toward me as pain began to gradually wash across her face once more.

"I am all ready to sing 'Rockaby Baby,'" I assured, clutching my left arm around her shoulders while holding her right hand with my own.

That brought one more smile to my mate's face as a medic slid a stool to my rump—finally noticing I had nothing to sit on, even though I was oblivious to the strain of bending over beside Roana for what must have been perhaps the better part of an hour by now. I was too focused to sit on it at the moment, though.

"Lance . . . it's happening . . ." she said, the expression on her face changing now, her smile disappearing and turning to a grimace once more.

Then there was a disturbance at the wide doorway to the unit as people made way . . . for our dragons.

"Trrannssfferrr prrroceeedinng. Torrr inn charrge," Rökkr reported himself, with Substance beside him and Spring beyond. He then switched to grunts.

"He adds we will tell captainn whenn to get underway," Substance translated beside him.

I had to smile at the idea, if dragons in fact would give the order. "Not too fast," I then cautioned however, looking again at my mate. "Roana and I want to be leading the way ashore at Berk with the rest of you. We arrive tomorrow morning. Steam in circles overnight, if we have to."

"I tell," Spring volunteered, peeling away off down the corridor.

"This family—" Roana breathed, beginning to go into labour again.

"Has everything handled," I assured, embracing her.

"You may push, Roana," Marta assured, ready with two medics to receive the baby.

"I'm sorry, Lance," Roana grimaced as a contraction overtook her.

"No apologies allowed," I assured gripping her tightly, my lips briefly kissing her forehead.

"AAAAAHHH!" my mate yelled, doubling up again, finally giving full vent to her body's overwhelming urge to push.

Contraction after contraction then seized Roana as I maintained a grip around her shoulders, supporting her practically the only way I could.

"The head is beginning to emerge," Marta was soon assuring near us though. "Bulb syringe," our physician then called to an assisting medic, presumably to evacuate the baby's nose and mouth of mucus.

"It's too small," Roana then cried in distress though between breaths and strains. "It's coming out too easily. I should be feeling much more!"

"The baby is coming out fine, Roana," Marta assured as she continued her work between my mate's upturned legs covered in medical linens. "Keep pushing, you're halfway."

"UUNNNNGGGHHH!" Roana gutturally roared, raising her head, her whole body straining to push, before pausing to catch another breath. "Gods, Lance, this doesn't feel right to me."

"Just do your part of it," I calmly encouraged, continuing to hold Roana around her shoulders, "and let Marta do hers. This is one of those times where being a doctor doesn't necessarily help you in becoming a mother. You're analyzing too much for your own good. You're the mother part of this right now, okay?"

Roana breathlessly nodded, glancing at me with the briefest of smiles before resuming another push with determination.

"Oxygen tube. Scalpel!" Marta then barked in quick succession, presumably to get our baby on oxygen and separated from the placenta as rapidly as possible.

It was done though. Our baby was born . . . but there was no sound yet, no reassuring cry.

"Stay vith me," Marta said sharply to one assistant as they both moved away from us now. "Keep the oxygen flowing into the baby's nose no matter vhat!"

"No . . ." Roana now began quietly weeping, trying to see what was going on as Marta was rapidly placing the baby into the makeshift incubator.

"Arrest!" we heard Marta say as we could see her right arm and hand beginning to massage the baby's chest. "More oxygen! EKG!"

Another corpsman began ripping open small EKG pads and wiring to attach to the baby.

"Epinephrine, zero point two cc's," Marta then called as another medic quickly prepared a small syringe of it for her.

I just held Roana tightly as she wept against me. _I'm sorry,_ I silently thought, not daring to give voice to it. _My family line's curse,_ I pondered, remembering my ancestor Astrid's difficult, even tragic, second birth.

We began to hear an electronic beeping though . . . irregular at first, but then seeming to stabilize into a steadier pattern.

"Alright," Roana and I could finally hear Marta sighing, "ve have stable rhythm. You, vatch her vhile I prepare an I.V. drip."

Her . . . our baby was a girl.

"You hear that?" I began to marvel to my mate.

"Yeah," Roana whispered, " . . . stable rhythm."

"Well, the other part, too," I smiled now.

"Girl . . ." she smiled before I gently kissed her. "Was kind of hoping to bear you a son—at least the first time 'round . . . family line and all."

"Our daughter will be a great leader," I assured, " . . . or whatever she wants to be."

"Blessed be this girl child of Ýsa and Johann," Substance then said over at the doorway, her head raised and eyes closed in prayer.

— — — — —

Soon, Roana's afterbirth was dealt with, with Substance having me give instructions to have it incinerated, even in the ship's boilers if necessary, as we didn't have access to a fireplace in Sick Bay. Being Ýsa, let alone tribal leaders, we had to abide by our long established custom after all, laid down by no less than my own ancestors as recorded in the Journal. At first, Substance and Rökkr had both volunteered to incinerate it, but I vetoed that, figuring there was no place onboard the carrier that was really safe, or that we'd be authorized to do so. I at least was in enough trouble with the captain already.

But eventually, with most everyone else being asked to allow us to rest, and with both oxygen and I.V. tubing rigged and even carefully taped to our baby, Marta carefully brought her to us. Wrapped in a soft white towel, she was tiny, not much bigger than my hand . . . but she was ours.

"Keep the towel doubled over her. Keep her varm," Marta encouraged as she gently unwrapped the baby, turning her over so she lay comfortably against the skin of Roana's revealed upper chest, "but just keep her nestled against you now as she rests. Your varmth, heartbeat and breathing she already knows. They are the greatest comforts you can provide her, even the best medicine.

"It could get boring at times," our doctor smiled, "but I vant you both to take turns, just holding her as much as possible. Her adjustment to our vorld and her growth vill be much faster if she lays against both of you. The last place she should be is alone in that plastic tub!"

"I never heard of this approach before," I admitted, watching our tiny daughter already seeming to fall contentedly asleep against Roana's skin.

"It is still heresy among most of the vestern medical vorld," Marta dismissed with seeming irritation. "Zey vould vant to put all of us into sterile containers if zey could! Cut us off from the nature, contact and nurture that truly sustains us—that gives life to us as much as food does. Vombs are anything but sterile. Zey are varm, comforting, but vith a few germs to strengthen us. I had to unlearn half of vhat I vas taught in medical school vith African tribeswomen and healers who took me under their ving vhen I first arrived there. I am so glad I vas led to you, your tribe though, Lance. I vould never go back to practicing conventional medicine on the Outside.

"But you must be tired, bending over beside Roana like that all this time," she then noted.

"Hadn't really noticed," I replied, "but now that you mention it," I groaned a little, suddenly realizing it might be harder than I thought for me to straighten up again.

"Vhy not just climb in bed vith your mate? Even strip down to your under things," our doctor then encouraged me to my further surprise. "You should both get used to resting together vith your daughter for now—find positions that vork vhile keeping her safe against one of you. Here," she then said, adjusting the towel around our baby into something of a nest tucked against Roana, "is that comfortable?"

"I'll get used to it," Roana assured, looking at our daughter as I now climbed under the covers next to her on the fairly narrow sick bay bed, wearing just my under tunic and boxers now.

"I vill be around to check on you as I compound some more nutrients and medicines for your daughter's I.V. But othervise, rest for now," Marta assured as she drew the thin, hospital-grade sheet and blanket over both of us before turning to leave, closing a curtain around us as well.

"Short day," I quipped as both Roana and I lay back on the one pillow we had in that bed.

Roana just nestled against me as we both looked at our daughter. "Over ten to twelve weeks premature," she finally said. "Gods, Lance . . ."

"We got her," I assured, extending my right arm over Roana and our child to cradle them both . . . and perhaps to keep myself from falling out of that small medical bed. "Perfect doctor, well-equipped modern sick bay, all sorts of medicines—everything we needed for her arrival. She just didn't want to miss the big event."

"I tried to be so careful," Roana continued, almost with regret, " . . . well, half the time," she qualified.

"You're fine," I reassured. "Everything's fine."

"Sorry for interrupting your surprise," she quietly said.

"I gave you full permission for that, in the tent on top of that mountain a while back, remember?" I half-smiled.

"Our daughter must have heard that," she sighed.

I kissed my mate on the cheek. "You're a little quiet," I noted though. "This should be a happy time for us."

"Premature births can be as frightening as breech births," she replied, "especially to a doctor . . . and when it's yours."

I just held Roana from the side, kissing her right cheek. She went quiet once more—a little too quiet for me.

"Hey, you're not going all 'tribal' on me, are you?" I continued, trying almost anything to cheer her up and pleasantly change her thinking and mindset. "Disappointed that our first is a girl and not a boy?"

"There has not been a woman chief in our tribe," she noted, still looking at our baby.

"And until Jarldis came along, there hadn't been a baroness in charge of the Berk nation, either," I replied. "Besides, you were destined to be the first woman chief . . . until I showed up."

"You're a clown, you know that?" she said, turning her head slightly towards me, giving me a sideways glance with a straight face.

"I wound up irritating the heck out of Melanie," I admitted with a subtle smile. "But somebody has to be happy over this blessed event around here."

Roana shifted more onto her back beside me, still holding our baby carefully upon her upper chest as she buried her face against my neck in surrender. "It's why I mated you," she quietly sniffed.

I drew her and our baby even closer against myself as I just held them both.

"You still want the wedding or at least marriage feast that's supposed to have gone with that . . . for a year now?" I wondered.

Roana took a quiet breath against me, pausing for a moment. "Having been in that friend's wedding at college on the Outside," she finally replied, "as they say, everyone's expecting it, and are showing up by now."

"Well, there are always, 'Acts of God'," I noted, "as well as, 'Acts of babies.'"

"Think we could celebrate our family then?" Roana asked, looking at me now. "With me carrying our daughter at our wedding . . . and presenting her, to the world?"

"That could be possible," Marta now chimed in, entering our curtained-off area again. "I'll just need to be around you to check her at times."

"I know what to look for," Roana assured though, glancing down once more at our now sleeping preemie.

"Vell, as you know then, Doctor," Marta smiled, "basically all she needs is to be kept varm, and on oxygen for now. I.V.'s she can have intermittently, eventually being weaned off of them as she's able to begin nursing."

"Make the preparations you need, Marta," I quietly directed, with her being our only assistant, tribal or military, in the room at the moment. "And reinforce to the others that we arrive at Old Berk tomorrow morning. I'm sure you can do that more authoritatively than I can. Besides, I'm taking the day off here."

"Yes, Chief," our village physician smiled.

I would never have gotten that kind of response or cooperation out of Ran.

— — — — —

Both Roana and our baby then dozed as I cradled and kept watch over them beside me. It was my turn to play 'guardian' this time. Besides, if I dozed off, too, I was afraid I was going to fall out of that bed.

Marta had dimmed the lights though, so I at least relaxed, letting my mind wander.

Eventually, I overheard quiet talking.

"How is everything?" a male voice said.

"The baby is premature, but fine," Marta replied. "The family are resting together now."

"So the chief isn't available?"

That, along with a heavy sense of duty neglected, got me to stir, even begin getting out of bed.

"Lanncce . . ." my mate mumbled half asleep. "Don't go . . ."

Duties and obligations of love were now conflicting. "Come," I said loudly around the ward curtains towards the entrance. What the heck. I was a mate and father first, and I found myself no longer minding showing that to the world . . . or at least to whomever wanted to see me as chief.

So I resolutely stayed in bed, just sitting up a little more, as Marta brought Captain Andrews, his aide, and Bob around the edge of the curtain to see me.

"What can I do for you?" I tried to say brightly, now wishing I had at least gotten out of bed, as well as properly dressed.

"We're underway again for Old Berk," the captain replied, "so I just wanted to check on you all, and confirm your instructions that we're not to arrive until tomorrow morning—especially as your FSK X.O. requested my presence down on the hangar deck so that one of your dragon emissaries could give me the instructions personally."

I couldn't help smiling now. "Those instructions were correct," I confirmed.

"Well," he sighed, "we have a little distance to cover, but it's not like we haven't steamed in circles before for other evolutions. You sick now though?" he then wondered.

"Just caring for my family," I decided to say, glancing at them beside me, "in a way that's most important to us."

The captain couldn't help subtly shaking his head.

"More demerits?" I wondered.

He then looked to the others beside him. "Could you give us a moment?" he then requested.

"Catch you later, Bob," I assured.

"I wanted to get back to that dragon anyway," he assured. "Their language is very interesting, and economical. Somewhat like Chinese with the same words meaning different things, depending on the tone used."

"You're already figuring out their language?" I wondered with surprise.

"Breaking codes is part of what I do," Bob replied. "DNA, molecular sequences, ciphers, languages, safe combinations . . . they're basically the same to me. Dragon may be hard for me to grunt and murmur right, but it's not that hard to figure out. I have some leave time due, so I think I'll put in for a sabbatical and join you on your island, or islands now, and get to know the dragons some. I might even be able to come up with a written alphabet, perhaps a dictionary of Dragon, as my Nightmare is telling me their language and dialects have been unwritten. Just the kind of extended vacation I've been wanting!"

I could only smile and laugh. "Just check with our FSK X.O., Tor, and let him know you have my clearance to settle in with us for a while. His dragon assistant will be able to know and confirm that you and I have talked."

"Telepathic capabilities," Bob surmised, holding up a finger while he turned to leave. "I knew it!"

"See you tomorrow for the big event," I called after him anyway, as the captain's assisting lieutenant now took that as his cue to leave as well.

"Look . . ." the captain then said to me as we both watched them go.

"I'm only a colonel," I interjected, "because I was good at what I did in intelligence circles. I was never a military officer or even a field agent, until now. Nor have I been all that good at following, or setting, military discipline. I'm not quite like Bob there, but you'll find that many of us intelligence types, especially analysts, march more to our own drummer. I also run a pretty 'loose ship' back on our island—but for us, it works. And I'm not really permitted to run any other kind of 'ship' there anyway."

"And I make a lousy diplomat," the captain admitted. "I've just encountered surprise after surprise on this trip, and normally on a carrier, surprises and everyone going off in their own directions without clearance and coordination can be deadly. I'm without most of my department heads and team, and when I'm surprised, I tend to hand out demerits and disciplinary action. If the Pentagon had sent you, I'd be appealing to my fleet C.O. to have you called back, and this circus off my ship.

"But I talked with your X.O., and that dragon a bit," he then said, " . . . your adopted son, Spring. He told me a little about your battle with the Soviets, this trip being the fulfilment of a thousand years of hiding and hoping for your people . . . a lot, really.

"I've done a good number of missions," the captain sighed, "but haven't seen a lot of purpose, even point to it all sometimes. But I am this time though . . . and I'm sorry, Chief," he then said to my surprise. "Sorry for handing out demerits to you in irritation, even jest among my team. This is my first carrier command. We're fresh over here from Norfolk, and I can see Washington is perhaps testing or honing my diplomatic skills with this covert mission, before I can screw up and offend a head of state or foreign dignitary where the State Department will hear about it—especially as I'm told we're due for some NATO joint exercises and somewhat public port calls after this. The admiral got on my case this morning after what I sharply told Marshall Control from the bridge when they reported your brief transmission and then loss of contact."

"I'm sorry, too, Captain," I apologised as well, moving to get out of bed to at least accord him the respect of standing up, even in my undergarments.

"You're fine," he assured me though as even Roana seemed to be reluctant to let go of me entirely. "I'm newly-divorced as well. Too much, 'duty over family,' for too long," he sighed. "Should have been just where you are . . . when any of my three children were born. I was around only long enough to conceive them for the most part."

"Why don't you come ashore tomorrow," I invited. "That will be even more of a circus, and I'll be the one in the middle of it all. But if you want exposure to a foreign culture, it'll be good training. Plus, I'll talk you up with NATO Supreme Commander Thorndyke, even introduce you to him. I'm pretty sure he'll be there, and it will help ease your transition to this side of the 'pond'. At least with my cousin as Norwegian defence establishment liaison, I could have the Norwegians asking for you by name . . . which should look good to Washington."

"Dress whites?" he wondered.

"Can't go wrong with those," I replied. "Just check back with my X.O. or Spring for a dragon ride, and tell them you'll be wearing whites, so they'll pair you up with a clean dragon, or at least a clean saddle."

"Deal," the captain smiled as he now reached to shake my hand.

— — — — —

He and the two others were the only visitors Marta would permit however as she urged Roana and I to resume resting after Captain Andrews departed. Later as I dozed, I could hear her quietly shooing Oleg away at the sick bay entrance in Bokmål, presumably assuring him that his services were not needed and to contact Tor regarding any other urgent matters.

That evening after dinner though, with both of us feeling rested, even Roana was getting 'cabin fever' being cooped up in that windowless, modern sick bay, just as I was.

So, with Marta's concurrence and even accompaniment, we took our daughter for a first stroll . . . a 'test walk', for the procession tomorrow, we all agreed. Our baby, whom we still hadn't named yet, was safely tucked against Roana's upper chest under a white bathrobe she was wearing, in a cloth sling that Marta had tied right around my mate's shoulder and torso, with knots in it to keep our baby safely secured in just the right spot. Roana had a small green oxygen canister slung over her left shoulder, with a clear plastic tube running right to the baby's nose.

"Sorry you're having to carry all that," I noted as we slowly walked along a corridor.

"Mother's duty," my mate replied as she looked almost exclusively at our daughter nestled against her, evidently trusting me to watch where we were walking.

"Entering the hangar deck," I cautioned. "No hatch sill, though."

Human cheering and dragon roaring then broke out across the cavernous steel space at our mere appearance among everyone before we had a chance to utter a word. Rökkr and Substance somehow even magically appeared right in front of us.

"Onnn usss . . ." Rökkr decided, gesturing his head at the saddle he was still wearing. "Sssooo ttheyy see youu bettrr."

I felt torn, wanting to remain right with Roana but feeling I had to be on Substance, including and honouring her as my dragon companion.

"Go on," Roana encouraged me with a parting kiss amid the loud cheering around us, knowing me too well.

So after helping her mount Rökkr with our daughter—side saddle this time—I mounted Substance, who was still wearing her own saddle, strap of office, and Saint Olaf medal and chain as well. Led by Spring who had now also shown up, our family then processed through the crowd assembled on the hangar deck in a gentle winding pattern so that everyone could see us, even though our baby remained protectively nestled out of view within the robe Roana was wearing, with Roana periodically glancing down her robe as a silent confirmation that our little girl was with us.

When we reached the port for the forward starboard elevator, our dragons paused as we all looked out upon the nighttime ocean. The carrier was cruising along at a comfortable fifteen knots or so around us.

I looked aside at Roana. She smiled back, sitting upon her Night Fury, cradling our child, as Rökkr and Substance faced resolutely out to sea beneath us, ever on guard.

"Sleep with us, tonight," Substance decided beneath me.

"Substance," I sighed, "you know we can't do that."

"Your daughter is of Berk," my Night Fury maintained however as she continued to face out to sea, "a Dragon Berker. She must receive our medicine, too . . . of touch, care, and prayer, as she begins to hear and learn our language alongside yours."

"Under normal circumstances," I noted, "she wouldn't be getting all that for another ten weeks or so."

"She is special," my dragon replied. "Wants to begin her learning and tasks early. She is the first of two great houses. Has much to achieve, live up to."

"She is a premature baby," I replied with a little irritation.

"Do not limit her, as Outsiders do," my dragon advised. "She will be loved, encouraged for who she is. But do not condemn her to be weak . . . or ordinary. A daughter of Hiccup deserves better than he got at start. Even he ensured that for his own."

As a blood Ýsa, that got to me.

I glanced aside at Roana. Even she was subtly nodding at me.

"Well," I surrendered with a sigh, "let's at least have these portal doors closed."

— — — — —

While even Marta seemed at least a little reluctant this time, a family 'nest' was soon set up for us in the hangar, right among everyone else. At least with all the portal doors closed, the cavernous space seemed to be warming up somewhat.

It was perhaps appropriate though, as everyone wanted to see the Tengslamyndun Fjölskylda or "Family Bonding," where a new arrival was introduced and bonded with their family, dragon and human. An almost dead silence pervaded the hangar as this dragon-originated tradition was observed.

Roana started it by carefully reaching into her bathrobe and bringing our tiny daughter out of the protective pouch she had been nestled in with just her right hand at first. Life had never looked so fragile, even to me, as I kept an arm around my mate while she did this.

"Towel," Roana quietly called as Marta swiftly provided a fluffy white one, which my mate proceeded to carefully place our daughter in, partially wrapping her but keeping her tiny head and even arms exposed.

"First, she meets her father," Roana said as she then passed our swaddled preemie daughter to me, keeping a hand underneath though as I nervously accepted the baby into my arms. "Just nudge her, nose to nose," my mate gently encouraged.

Cautiously, I brought our daughter to my face, her entire head seeming hardly bigger than my nose. Although her eyes were closed, curiously, her tiny arms were now apart, seemingly in welcome, even if they were jerking a little. _Life . . ._ I couldn't help thinking as I did this. Her almost microscopic nose seemed so delicate that I brought mine touching her forehead ever so gently instead.

"Say something, gently to her," Roana encouraged, her face close beside our daughter and I, "so she comes to know you, by voice as well as warmth and smell."

I was at a loss for words. "Welcome . . ." I finally sniffed, finding my own eyes closing.

"Come on, Lance," Roana now encouraged. "She's our daughter."

"Thrust into life early though," I whispered, "barely ready." I then brought my tiny daughter against the base of my neck, trying to give her a fatherly embrace as I now quietly wept.

"It's not a time to be sad. You've said so yourself," my mate said, kissing my cheek, her left hand supporting mine as I held our little girl.

"I'm overwhelmed," I quietly sniffed with almost a laugh, unable to say more. Re-closing my eyes, I found myself wanting to protect her, love her, even apologise for her being thrust into our cold, hard world so early.

After giving me a moment, "Shall we let the rest of our family say hello?" Roana gently suggested.

"Okay . . ." I replied, trying to recompose myself.

"Hey," my mate assured as our hands exchanged our daughter once more, "nothing's wrong, other than she's early."

"I know," I replied as my arms instinctively enfolded around both of them.

"Stay close to us," Roana invited as she turned towards the rest of our family. "Let's do this together."

I just gave her a subtle, confirming smile.

"Okay," my mate then said, turning towards the dragon half of our family, "just keep still and let me bring her to touch you."

Rökkr was first. His usual scowl was gone now. I had never seen his eyes so open, even tentative and nervous as our daughter was gently brought against his snout between them. I didn't feel quite so alone in my own feelings anymore, figuring delicate preemies must make males universally cautious, no matter the species.

Then it was Spring's turn. "Sisterr . . ." he murmured as she was brought against the tip of his snout. That got to me. She would always know him as her older brother . . . and it would be perfectly normal to her. She would play and learn with dragons, speak their language as naturally as ours, everything. I found myself awed all over again.

"I go last," Substance said, as Roana and I then turned towards Tana and Tvö Hoffüt.

"Þetta er amma þín. This is your grandmother," Roana then said to our daughter while presenting her to Tana, to the older woman's quiet, tearful surprise. "þú ert," my mate assured Tana as the woman moved to embrace all three of us. Even though we weren't related by either blood or marriage, I now felt closer to Tana than I had with virtually any of my own relatives on the Outside.

Then, Roana introduced our daughter to Tvö Hoffüt, ever so gently nudging her against the snouts of each of the Zippleback's heads gathered close together, just clear of their long, sharp, upwardly protruding teeth. The proximity of those white, oral stilettos to my preemie daughter made me anxious all over again—the contrast of hard and lethal just an inch away from soft and vulnerable was fairly hard to ignore. But then, nudging most any dragon other than a Night Fury had come to seem like trying to kiss a rose that had very long thorns anyway.

By this time I was also thinking it was a lot to be introducing any baby, even a healthy one, to on their first day of life. But we were down to the last family member . . . Substance.

Her lifeless eyes closed, my dragon companion began a very quiet hum of prayer as she sensed Roana and I bringing our daughter towards her snout now.

"You strong . . . never forget that," my dragon quietly but confidently said as the tips of their faces touched. "You do great things for a people who need you."

"Substance . . ." I sighed. "Just let her be even a baby for now."

"And do not let your father limit you," she added, undaunted.

I could see that parenting with Substance around was going to be interesting.

— — — — —

Soon, we were all bedded down for the night within a fairly tight family circle amid all the other dragons and humans crowded around us inside that hangar space. Our own dragons had formed a ring around the human half of our family as Substance and Rökkr settled with their heads meeting just beyond Roana and I. Tvö Hoffüt was settled across their tails, as Tana was beside him, wrapped in her own quilt just beyond our feet.

"Comfortable?" I asked as my mate shifted herself once more with her back to me under the quilt we were sharing.

"No," she sighed, "although I have no right to complain."

"Pass our girl to me," I invited.

Roana quietly turned towards me, gently removing the towel our daughter was still wrapped in from within her bathrobe. Accepting the small bundle complete with a couple EKG wires trailing out of it, I then tucked my daughter, towel and all, inside the right half of the loose tunic I was wearing, opening the towel so that my little girl was resting right against the skin of my upper chest.

"You get the right side of me," I said to our daughter, "while you get everything else," I then smiled to Roana.

My mate then hugged me fiercely from the left, careful though to keep her arm below the bulge in my tunic where our daughter was already seeming to contentedly rest.

"Very, very good," Marta praised, giving our daughter a final check, even as she had to carefully step over both Rökkr's tail and Tana's head to do it.

"You sure this is okay?" I double checked.

"Nothing could be better for her," our village doctor assured as she checked the EKG patch and wires attached to our baby one more time, as well as briefly monitoring her with a stethoscope after pre-warming it in her hand. "She has known nothing but such varmth, sounds and contact before today. Being monitored alone in a sterile incubator would be far more distressing, even less healthy for her. Just don't roll over yourself."

"I am very good at anchoring him, aren't I?" Roana assured, looking warmly into my eyes as I turned my head towards her on the two pillows we were sharing.

"Yep," I agreed. "I can't remember waking up on anything other than my back since you've been around."

"We make sure though," Substance responded, shifting her right side even tighter against me, ensuring I was nicely wedged in for the night and quite unable to move.

"I have night corpsmen check on you as vell," Marta assured with a smile as she now got up. "I've set just the EKG monitor alarm to sound if it is disconnected or there is a problem. Otherwise it vill be silent. Hope this is alright vith you, Rökkr," she added, glancing at the twin EKG wires running right below his snout to the monitor positioned on a low metal stand beyond him.

"Finnne . . ." he whispered barely opening his mouth, not wanting to disturb our daughter.

"Now I can sleep," Roana yawned against me.

"You deserve to," I warmly assured, giving her forehead a kiss as she nestled the right side of her face even more firmly against my shoulder and neck.

"We'll be giving her over to dragon care soon enough," my mate replied. "Then I'll let you pin me down and sleep against my shoulder . . . and do pretty much anything else you want to."

"Now that's an invitation," I accepted with a smile. "But we don't get to care for her much?" I then wondered.

"All of us take turns, even Tana and Tvö Hoffüt will," she answered. "That way none of us get worn out, like parents do on the Outside. But the tribe decided long ago that our children need to be raised by dragons as much as by humans, so that they will identify with both worlds, and keep them united. To put it in Ýsa terms," she yawned again, "we've been producing Erics and Jórunns alongside Juniors and Miracles ever since, successfully for the most part."

"Well I don't mind doing my part in caring for her though," I said, glancing down at the new life nestled against me. "I want to be close to our daughter, too. Not that I don't want to be close to you as well, Spring," I added.

"Spring?" I said again though, not hearing him as I looked up at the painted steel overhead panels and dimmed lighting far above us.

"Gonne. Torr minnd-call," Rökkr noted, his head laying just above Roana's as his eyes closed.

"You're tuned into everyone, all the time?" I wondered aloud to him, while also remembering to mind-tell my dragon son, _Never mind,_ _Spring. Carry on._

"Oppenn to all, rressponnd to prroblemms. It Great Guarrdian'ss job," Rökkr replied. "Sleeepp," he then encouraged however.

Roana was now already pleasantly fading off against me as I turned my attention once more to the little form nestled against my right chest who was shifting ever so slightly before going still once more in sleep as well.

My daughter. Even the thought caused me to quietly smile.

Once again, as I could feel the carrier around us steam through the ocean, all was perfect. Despite the hassles, the worries, even the brief moments of panic today—things could not be better . . . until tomorrow. That would be a big day indeed.

One day though, I would be telling our daughter that she spent the first night of her life not sleeping in comfortable human quarters, which Roana and I still hadn't used, but huddled tightly among our dragons on the cool, even chilly hangar deck of an aircraft carrier.

I was sure there would be a lesson in that, somewhere.


	48. Chapter 48

_Author's Note_

_I truly appreciate the reviews readers leave. But if you want a response, as one reader did in a recent review, you need to either log in with a User ID to this site when you review so I can reply, or Private Message me from my profile page. Facebook names alone aren't good enough to allow me to respond because there is usually more than one person with the same name there, as there was in this reader's case._

_So if the reader who wanted a response (and I don't want to necessarily broadcast your real name all over the place) would Private Message me, I'll be happy to correspond with you._

_But now, on to Lance's (and the tribe's) big day . . ._

— _Norwesterner_

* * *

><p>"Morning, Lance," I heard softly breathed in my ear, which was followed by a kiss and then a warm cheek on my shoulder. "Don't move yet," the voice followed up, as a feminine hand cupped over the tiny being that was still quietly resting on my right chest, but moving ever so slightly in her sleep.<p>

I just gently gripped Roana with my left arm that was still around her, even though it was half asleep as I kissed her forehead. "Her first morning," I whispered, turning my head and trying to look down my chin at my new daughter.

"Thank you, Lance," Roana now sniffed as she moved to embrace me tightly, while still keeping a hand carefully cupped over our little girl. "Thank you, for everything."

"You're welcome," I warmly whispered, holding Roana tightly now, just savouring this quiet moment with her.

"Now hear this!" a speaker now blared overhead above us. "Arriving, Isle of Berk. Arriving Isle of Berk. Anchor Detail to stations. Anchor detail to stations," the PA system loudly echoed throughout the hangar deck we were bedded down in, as our dragons as well as Tana began rousing around Roana and I.

"Glad we woke up before that," I yawned.

"It's why part of me wishes we could have given birth at home," Roana sighed, still against me. "Just our family, peace and quiet . . . instead of an insanely busy feast day."

"You're not wishing this wasn't happening now, are you?" I wondered.

"No, my love," she gently assured, moving to share a proper morning kiss with me now. "Like I said, thank you, for everything. And I meant it.

"But our daughter needs her I.V.," Roana then said, moving to sit up in our bedding. "Good thing her mom's a doctor . . . although I had been looking forward to nursing her, instead of plugging her into bags of fluid."

"You will," I assured, rubbing her back. "I even look forward to sharing that with you."

That caused Roana to smile, before she snapped herself back to business amid the growing activity among villagers and dragons around us. "Just hold her for another minute, while I get the bag and tubing," she then said, rising in her undertunic and stepping around Rökkr to where the 'preemie' cart was that Marta had left, containing the supplies we needed.

"Sir," Tor then quietly interrupted from my other side, addressing me across Substance's black back and dorsal vertebrae, "we're ready to start going ashore, but you had said you wanted to lead."

"Our people have waited a thousand years for this—" I began saying looking down at my tiny daughter as I still cradled her against my chest, before Substance interrupted.

"Løytnant, _wait!_" she sharply growled, very quietly though so as not to shock my daughter, as Substance's head snapped around towards him. "Dismissed, until we call you!"

"Y-Y-Yes, M-M'am!" Tor now stammered as he beat a hasty retreat from us.

"Substance, thank you," I said to her with a subtle smile.

"Outsiders . . ." my dragon snorted with derision.

"We still have to be nice, and get along," I said, still smiling however. "And he is becoming one of us."

"Family come first," my dragon quietly maintained. "True islanders understand that."

"Did I miss something?" Roana innocently wondered as she returned with a fresh I.V. bag and tubing. "What did Tor want?"

"Substance was just doing combat on our behalf," I summarized. "We'd better get going," I added, sitting up myself now while still carefully holding our daughter against me.

— — — — —

Soon, I was dressed, although still in need of a shower, while Roana began "nutritioning" our preemie with that I.V. drip. My mate was right—neither of us could call it nursing, or even feeding with that narrow tube sticking into a receptacle implanted in the side of our daughter's small abdomen for the time being.

"I'm just thankful she's alive," Roana sniffed as she now cradled our tiny girl against her own upper chest as the fluid began slowly dripping.

"Roana . . ." I said, comforting her as I embraced them both from the side.

"Go," my mate said, looking at our daughter. "Take care of what you need to. You and I have a lot to do today. And have Oleg change you into fresh clothes in our quarters. You've been wearing those same clothes for two days now."

She then glanced at me with a subtle smile as I gave her a parting kiss. That seemed to make us both feel better.

"Substance, where is Tor?" I then asked, still looking at my mate, and remembering I didn't have a radio on me at the moment.

"Up high," she responded blindly facing upward a little, sensing him. "Four dragons above."

She was meaning dragon lengths, at around 7 metres each, which meant Tor was up on either the carrier's Flag or Admiral's Bridge, or the Navigation Bridge. A long climb for me however.

Sure enough, the Nav. Bridge was where I soon found Tor, entering that space to the obligatory, "Dragon Chief on the Bridge," from a signalman as Captain Andrews and the task force vice admiral both turned towards me, fully resplendent in their dress white uniforms and ready to go, while I was still looking very unwashed at the moment.

"Morning. Aren't we anchoring a ways offshore?" I quickly tried to note in distraction from my less than presentable condition while seeing Berk far off in the distance . . . at least a few miles.

"We need to allow the ship room to swing on her anchor," Andrews explained. "That and we were told not to drop anchor close to the island, as among other things, more than one of your ancestors' remains and funerary ships still rest out there."

"That would be true," I agreed.

"Sir," Tor quietly prodded beside me, "we need to get going. Norge One is in a holding pattern, awaiting your arrival on the island."

"Waiting on me?" I wondered.

"Protocol, sir," he answered. "You're supposed to welcome him to Berk, not he you. It would be seen as a surrendering of Berk's sovereignty over the island to the Norwegian crown if he landed first and greeted you."

"Oh boy," I sighed, looking down and now feeling like I was really gumming up the works this morning.

"Might I quickly assist you, sir?" Oleg now hinted as well, glancing at me up and down with a less than satisfied look.

"Yes, thank you," I accepted this time without argument as we both then politely excused ourselves from the bridge and beat a hasty retreat down the ship's many flights of ladders or stairs to my formal quarters.

Once inside, as I practically ripped off my village clothes that I had been wearing for two days now, I already heard the shower in the head running. Stepping into the head and parting the shower's curtain . . . "Roana," I sighed with both relief, and some surprise, finding her already shampooing her long, golden hair. "Where's our baby?" I wondered though, stepping in to join her.

"Marta's giving her a full check over," Roana assured, "including quick blood tests. She told me to go get myself ready here. I told her in thanks she was practically my bride's maid."

"Oops," I said, stopping myself from embracing her now, "that's right . . . seeing the bride before the ceremony, let alone showering beforehand with her."

"Lance . . ." Roana sighed as she turned towards me under the shower's warm streams, taking her sudsed hands from her head, "I have been married, body and soul, to you for a year. We even have a baby now," she said, embracing me tightly. "If it were me, I'd be celebrating our anniversary and feasting, even marrying you again, at home, in our bedding . . . the way we did at the start of last winter."

"So this really is kind of a waste then," I found myself sighing with chagrin as I rested the side of my face against her shampooed head.

"No," she warmly said, still embracing me as we looked at one another once more. "This stóra hátít or grand feast today, is for everyone else. But I wanted this moment, in the shower, just with you, to start it all off right . . . my husband."

I kissed Roana, hard.

"Láttu hátítahöld byrja," she now smiled in her native tongue, formally signalling a start to our day.

— — — — —

Knowing we were basically holding everyone and everything up, Roana and I then quickly finished showering and drying one another before we emerged from the head or bathroom wearing towels to find both Oleg and Tana now waiting for us.

"Would you mind dressing next door?" Roana then said next to me with a mysterious smile.

Half of me wanted to ask her why, but I stopped myself as Oleg was already slinging what looked to be a brand new set of ceremonial village finery for me in a plastic dry cleaning bag on his arm. "Okay," I simply agreed, curiously smiling now myself as I followed Oleg out the door and around the corner into another stateroom, still with just a towel wrapped around me.

Never was I so glad to have a valet assisting me as Oleg helped me quickly don the best village clothing I had ever worn. The centrepiece of it all was a new, bright red tunic with a broad white stripe down it, almost like the flag of Canada where I had come from, as well as white cuffs on its sleeves. And yes, that old, heavy chief's bearskin cloak with its ancient bronze badges of office and chain was put on me as well—all just really cleaned this time, thanks to Oleg.

"How did all this get done, Oleg?" I asked as he finished helping me dress. "I don't even remember asking for this set of clothes, although it is very appropriate."

"You had help, sir," he replied with a subtle, mysterious smile of his own now, " . . . more than you know."

"I guess I should go straight to my dragon," I sighed. "You know, seeing the bride—at least fully dressed—beforehand and all."

"Let me check, sir," he said, ducking out the door before I could say anything. Curiously, he kept me waiting more than a moment. "Alright, let's go, sir," I finally heard him say from out in the corridor.

But when I came out that door, my jaw just dropped. "Oh. My. Gods," was all I was able to say.

Roana was there, standing before me in the most stunning attire I could imagine. Seemingly a cross between Greek, Roman and Aryan myth, she was wearing a white ceremonial sleeveless dress of reasonably thick but fine cloth draped a little loosely around her, with silver hems and a maroon sash tied around her waist. A fine white cape was draped about her shoulders as well, drawn together with twin silver brooches on each corner and a small silver chain. Her head though was the finishing touch, with her blonde hair drawn back into a single, loose French braid secured by long silver pins, and a simple but elegant silver metal band encircling her forehead and hair.

"This is my surprise for you," she simply said. "And I wanted you to see it before we appeared in public."

I simply moved to embrace her tightly.

"I just had to add the sash at the last minute," she sniffed against me with a laugh, "because I unexpectedly lost most of my 'baby bump'. But it works."

"Roana . . . you're right," I sighed in surrender. "We're having anniversaries at home from now on."

"But then there wouldn't be any reason for us to dress up, would there?" Roana smiled as we looked at one another again. "Come on, Chief," she then invited, "it's showtime."

— — — — —

Soon, we were both soaring out of the carrier's port quarter hangar portal on our dragons into the open blue sky amid dissipating fog and clouds. Roana was looking even more a goddess than ever in her white dress and flowing cape as she rode Rökkr sidesaddle this time, while a thick swarm of dragons, as well as Dragons and Riders, was already encircling the carrier in the air with yet more flying out the portal behind us.

In addition to being our doctor, Marta had convinced us to allow her to be our nanny for the day as well, bringing our daughter behind us in a helicopter she was having Tor call in. Her tests were showing our tiny girl needed some adjustments in her medications and nutrition, and Marta was wanting to bring a cart with all the supplies she might need, just in case.

"She vill be joining you for the important parts," our doctor and nanny was assuring us however.

Now out over the ocean, and aiming Substance straight for the Isle of Berk in the distance with my eyes and mind, I raised my left hand into a fist before slowly sweeping it forward in the time-honoured fashion among us . . . even though technically I should have waited for the other Riders to raise their fists as well. But I couldn't really see them all anyway, and this was anything but an attack.

As Substance now propelled her and I across that distance of sea at a good clip, it struck me. I was closing a circle that had spanned a thousand years, bringing my people back to our ancient home the same way the last of us had left . . . on our dragons. I was also closing my own odyssey in returning to this island. Memories of that original ride in a small boat, my first date with Roana, meeting Rökkr and being flown north to their island, seeing the village, bonding with Roana and Substance, adapting to life there, training as a Dragon Rider and then a Knight, the invasion and aftermath, becoming chief, Winter, Spring—both the season, and my son. So much had happened to this unsuspecting, freshly divorced, out of work exobiologist, all in one year.

I found myself looking down just beyond the metal saddlebars at Substance's strap of office as she flew us steadily onward. Someone had even cleaned and polished it for the occasion, although I had no idea who. That should have been my responsibility however, as her rider and companion. So much had gone on though, and so much was still to come, even today.

"Krone for your thoughts," I heard as an extended light grey felt boot brushed my right shoulder.

"Yikes!" I exclaimed, suddenly realizing that Roana had flown Rökkr right up beside me, with his left wing above and behind me, all without my noticing, bringing me just within reach of her foot. The two of them then peeled away so that Substance could flap her wings once more before she began losing speed and altitude.

"What 'ya thinking?" my mate warmly asked again.

"Everything," I sighed, glancing ahead and seeing the island looming somewhat larger before us now.

"Rökkr, be right back," Roana then simply said before pitching herself from his saddle while Substance just swooped to the right on my mate's mental cue alone to catch her. Roana landed just behind me with both legs to the left side, embracing me tightly.

"I want to share this day with you," my mate now breathed into my ear, giving me such wonderful goosebumps, "fully, and all that it means." Roana then just kissed that ear before tracing her tongue down and back up my neck, basically sending me into orbit.

"You are . . ." I sighed, but I could not finish the sentence.

"I am your shadow," she breathed, "a companion who will never leave, even part of your soul."

Half of me now wanted to turn Substance around, heading back to the carrier, or even on to a rebuilt Cabin Eight at the Drager Vertshus not too far beyond Old Berk, for a feast of a much more private kind. But fortunately, even Substance knew better than to act on my thoughts at that moment.

"You okay?" Roana gently breathed into my ear.

"I'm feeling pleasantly messed with, actually," I replied. "But I'll survive."

"I'll straighten you out . . . tonight," she whispered. "Promise."

As I turned my head to look at her with a mixture of utter amazement and I don't know what else, Roana simply gave me a beguiling kiss. She then moved to stand up, just leaping off Substance to the left, her white cape flying behind her. Rökkr smoothly swooped underneath Substance from the right to catch my mate as she resumed her sidesaddle posture on his neck. As her dragon flew them both up level with Substance and I once more, Roana just looked forward with a subtle smile on her face. "Amazing what a person feels like doing again, once they lose their baby bump," she noted.

Now I was in awe as well.

"Get ready for landing, Chief," my mate advised, looking ahead while I was unable to take my eyes off her. "Things are looking pretty crowded there."

I was still gazing at her though.

"Lance," Roana now said more directly, glancing between me and the island, "ahead."

"Oh, right," I said, looking ahead myself, trying to shake myself back into the here and now.

What I then saw surprised me almost as much as she had.

The original Berk was looming large before us now, the one almost witch's hat-like small mountain on the islet in front of the main island towering over the village site itself. But instead of a quiet, ghostly place, featuring a barren hillside that had been pockmarked with archaeological excavation sites . . . a village, even nation, was once again vibrantly alive there. Dozens of white party tents now stood in place of ancient houses as thousands of people crowded seemingly most every square metre of the old village site. Still more were arriving at the old boat harbour on military landing craft and other shuttle boats, ascending in a steady stream from several temporary floating docks up a series of reconstructed wooden ramps that now looked like they had always been there.

A growing cheer of thousands of voices now began surging from the scene in front of us as innumerable Viking horns began triumphantly sounding.

I looked behind to see a swarm of dragons flying, our maimed being carried with honour in slings beneath some of the dragons at the front of the swarm. I briefly had to close my eyes to blink away the growing tears as I looked forward again.

With Substance likely tuning into Rökkr beside us more than me at the moment, both our dragons now flapped their wings, slowing us to almost a hover in the air some twenty metres or so above the cheering crowd.

"Lance!" I barely heard Roana say above the steady and powerful roar of the crowd before us. "Let's land at that house up there," she pointed, "at the base of the mountain and stairs. There's a spot cleared!"

"House?" I said as much to myself for all I could be heard as I looked to see a single tall, rounded Dragon Berker house now standing where I had sworn none had stood on my previous visit a year ago. It seemed as good a place as any to land however, as it indeed had about the only decently-sized clear patch of grass before it in the entire village.

Rökkr and Substance now swooped us in a spiral down in front of that house. I looked at the grass helping Substance land as we faced the still roaring crowd before us. Dismounting myself before moving to the right and gallantly helping Roana to dismount from Rökkr as well, even though she didn't need it, the two of us then stood together, arm in arm as our dragons proudly fulfilled their role as guardians on either side of us, surveying the crowd as it continued to thunderously cheer before us. Blue Berk standards of every size were now being waived all over the place as the other dragons in our arriving swarm landed among and beyond the crowd, wherever they could. I was glad to see Spring now joining us as well, landing next to Substance, still proudly wearing the green FSK cloth strap around his neck with its gold ciphers on either side.

"Say something," Roana had to speak in my ear as we both waived to the crowd. "And make it good."

I now raised both my hands, bidding the crowd to quiet as their roar finally diminished. Collecting my thoughts carefully, I realized that there was really only one good thing I could say right then however . . .

"Berk býr! Berk lives!" I triumphantly proclaimed, raising my left fist into the air.

Thunderous cheering erupted before and around us all over again, accompanied by dragon roars and blasts. Even Rökkr, Substance and Spring all fired celebratory blasts off into the air. Roana couldn't help but turn my face with her hand, drawing me into a tear-filled, passionate kiss. Our faces then parted as we just held one another for a moment, nudging our foreheads and noses together in tearful, even laughing disbelief. Finally, we both faced the roaring crowd once more as my mate triumphantly raised her own left fist into the air as well, causing a further swell in the crowd's cheering.

"Father!" Spring almost had to bark across Substance for me to hear. "Norge One arrives," he advised, gesturing with his head and gaze towards a temporary helicopter platform that had been erected halfway down the hillside on our right at the edge of the festival site and crowd, as a familiar dark blue executive helicopter was now descending towards it.

"Lead the way, Son!" I almost had to yell in reply as Spring now moved in front of us to clear a path amid the crowd while Rökkr and Substance maintained their customary positions on either side of Roana and I.

Our family now slowly processed down that grassy hillside amid a crowd that just didn't stop cheering. It was beyond belief, and beyond anything I could have dreamt of, especially when I came here a year ago.

Amazingly, both we and the helicopter arrived at the platform at about the same time. But maybe the pilots were doing that on purpose . . . or for protocol. As Spring moved aside next to Substance on my left once more, the helicopter's side doors opened as its turbines powered down and its blades slowed to a stop. After the customary HMKG security people in suits emerged, His Majesty then stepped out the main side door, accompanied by the queen as well. The crowd continued cheering as they both briefly waived as my family stood ready on a corner of the platform to greet them.

Behind the royal couple, my Air Force cousin, Gunnar, then emerged from the helicopter along with his family. _It must have been crowded in there,_ I couldn't help thinking. To my surprise, I then saw Marta emerging from the helicopter as well, along with carefully bearing our tiny daughter, wrapped in blue cloth within in her arms.

"Thought we might as well do something useful while we were waiting for you to land here before us," the king quipped as his first words to me. "Especially as we were hailed. It was an easy, touch-and-go diversion though."

"Your Majesties," I then smiled, inadvertently defaulting to English as Outside Berker cameras were now trained on us, and even a microphone had been extended beside me, causing my voice to echo as the crowd quieted somewhat, " . . . welcome to Berk."

The cheering around us surged yet again as the king and I now shook hands before warmly embracing, while Roana embraced the queen as well. The king then looked behind him as the baroness, and even the Vatican envoy and the Archbishop of Canterbury stepped out from the helicopter.

_It must have been really crowded in there,_ I couldn't help thinking as I saw them emerge as well.

"I trust you've already said something to everyone," the king said, drawing my attention back. "Because I think you know what I have to say," he added, glancing towards some microphones now positioned on one corner of the platform facing the bulk of the crowd.

"By all means," I invited, gesturing with a sweep of my hand towards the microphones.

A moment later, our group was positioned before the microphones, overlooking the crowd.

"Citizens of Berk," the king now spoke, his amplified voice echoing across the stilled throng. "I read but don't speak Old Norse, and I know some of you do not speak contemporary Norwegian. So I address you in the neutral language of your chief." Roana now stepped forward beside the king, translating his words into Norse, as my cousin Gunnar stepped forward to translate in Bokmål as well. "A thousand years ago," the king continued between them, "a great wrong was committed upon your people. You were forced to flee from this place, and hide, as my predecessors sought to convert and dominate you. That was wrong. And, as I apologised to the dragon half of your tribe on their island two days ago, so I, along with Cardinal Rafello, Senior Diplomatic Envoy from the Holy See in Rome, and the Most Reverend Doctor Morecambe, Archbishop of Canterbury, have come with no small effort . . . to apologise to you."

His Majesty then knelt down on the platform before the crowd bowing his head, in the same way he had knelt before the dragons two days ago as the clerics once again knelt alongside him.

There was dead silence among the crowd now.

"Vit fyrirgefum. We forgive," I said, stepping forward beside them near the microphones, accepting their apologies on behalf of my people as Roana and Gunnar translated my words. "Let this mark a re-ascendancy for my people, and a new age of equality and mutual respect among us all," I concluded, extending my hand.

His Majesty now rose to symbolically accept my hand in friendship, as the cardinal and archbishop then did as well to a fresh round of enthusiastic cheering.

The king then moved to the microphones once more as the baroness now joined beside us, wearing her customary dark blue dress suit.

"However, words alone do not an apology make, at least to me," the monarch now continued. "So it is with great pleasure and respect that my crown and people help you in establishing this island as a historic park of the Berk nation."

A further surge of cheering now rose among the crowd as I glanced at Roana.

"That was my doing," the baroness now quietly explained beside me. "Opening the island as a park was about the only way to cover a tribal gathering this big, while restricting this event to just the tribe, as well as justifying the installation of docks and replica ramps. Think of it as a wedding present, from the Barony and the Kingdom—one that will continue to give, to all of us."

The baroness then moved towards the microphones, holding her hands up for quiet as the king moved aside. "Vennligst la oss flytte," she then said in Bokmål, "å åpne parkens to først utstillinger. Please let us move to open the park's first two exhibits."

With just a glance to Spring, the baroness then bid him to lead us all back up the hill towards both the base of the stone stairs that in turn led to what had once been the Mead Hall, and to that house I was now guessing the purpose of.

"You're going to restore the entire village?" I asked the baroness with some amazement as she walked just in front of Roana and I as we were once again protectively escorted by our dragons.

"Most of it," the baroness seemed to qualify. "But not the former Dragon Ring on the next point over on the main island," she gestured with her head off to our right. "A massive chunk of the granite pinnacle above it has fallen into it, with sand filling in around that boulder over time. It all would be very difficult to remove. So we will just dress the whole area to look like Vikings were never there, as we also don't feel we could adequately explain the ring's purpose to the general public at present, without prematurely revealing the actual existence of dragons."

"Prematurely?" I now wondered, catching that choice of words.

"We in the Barony are now implementing a plan—a dream, really," she replied, "one that we've been desiring to for centuries. The 'First Contact' theories and protocols you worked on actually provided us with the road map we have been lacking as to how to do it," she now subtly smiled. "And, now that you're here to help implement it all yourself, combined with the steps you have already been taking to bring Berk out of hiding . . . it was just time.

"The dragons will not be publicly revealed today or tomorrow though, nor will the Journal," she cautioned, "perhaps not for several more lifetimes yet. Sociologists among us have advised that among other measures, we begin gently pressing for the recognition of cetaceans—whales and dolphins—as true sentients and non-human persons, with rights. Something that may be quite hard to do in Norway," she sighed.

I couldn't help glancing at Substance right then however, seeing that vindicated, almost smug look of hers back on her face once more, despite her grey, vacant eyes. I just laid a hand warmly on her head as we continued slowly walking amid the crowd up the hill.

"Such an acceptance will be our confirmation that the world is ready to accept dragons," the baroness continued. "There will be a lot of explaining however, along with possibly some apologies, for successfully hiding them so long. That is something I wouldn't mind _not_ being around for.

"But," she said as we arrived in front of the wooden house where we had originally arrived and the long set of Mead Hall stone steps next to it, "it is time to open these first two legacies." A large red ribbon with a bow in the centre had now been drawn across in front of them.

Tor now stepped forward holding a pair of large, ceremonial scissors. "It will cut better than a sword or an axe, sir," he smiled, almost in apology for the modern, Outsider tool.

"Glad to see you made it over here," I noted, accepting the large scissors from him. "Our V.I.P.'s, too, apparently," I added, seeing the captain and vice admiral in their dress whites talking with several other senior officers in the dress uniforms of several nations and services.

"We ran out of room with the royal helicopter," he replied, "so I just put everyone else on dragons, while those from the mainland came via boat or earlier helicopter. Fortunately my wife is somewhat a seasoned rider with me now on my Nightmare though, and the captain and vice admiral were thrilled to have their own chance to ride dragons here from the carrier. Everyone was happy."

"Come on, my sir," Roana now interrupted next to me. "People are waiting—as is your bride."

"You know," I now quietly confessed, turning to her, "I had been so wrapped up in the details of getting us all here, that the ceremony itself kinda slipped off to the side."

"My job," Substance now chimed in next to me, "as Guardian of Memories."

"You're right, Substance," I now smiled towards her. "I place my complete trust in you for that."

"Well you should," she replied. "Now do this here," she said, gesturing with her head, knowing I was holding scissors and intending to cut a ribbon, "so I can do that."

"Thank you, Substance," Roana noted with satisfaction.

Marta now caught up with us. "She is all set to enjoy everything vith you now for a vhile," our doctor assured, gently passing our tiny daughter to Roana, helping my mate to position the sling for our little girl just right within her dress.

Lacking microphones at the moment, with the king, queen and baroness gathered beside Roana and I and our dragons in front of the ribbon, I simply held the large scissors above my head as Viking horns and dragon roars sounded around us to get everyone's attention.

"Everyone," I then invited our group, turning toward the ribbon with the scissors, "let's cut this together." The rest laid their hands on the scissors as well, as we all then smoothly cut the red ribbon to another round of cheering, horns and roars.

"Lead the way. House first," my mate said, almost stage managing me in my ear amid the crowd's noise.

Shaking my head with a smile, I then led my family for an exclusive first look at what I now knew to be a replica of my own ancestor's house. I opened the door to step inside, feeling surprisingly at home. A fire had already been lit in the central fireplace, and replicas of ancient pans and utensils were on cooking tables next to the fire. There were even a few glass cases along the far walls, displaying original artefacts, and floor bedding was visible on the other side and in the rear corner underneath a loft above.

I found myself silently moved for a moment as I looked around.

Then I saw Hiccup's drafting table off in the front corner next to me.

"That the original?" I asked, glancing between Roana and the table.

"The original's still up north," she assured. "It'll be in our own house when we get back," she then whispered in my ear. "Another little wedding gift, from me."

"Roana . . ." I sniffed, gratefully embracing her from the side while glancing down to see our small daughter still safely wrapped and nestled inside against her chest.

Looking around this house though, laid out just as Hiccup had described in his Journal, I could see my ancestors here, almost literally . . . talking, laughing, playing, loving. To me, they always would be now. We had given them their home back. But strangely, I wasn't feeling the spiritual presences that I had felt during my first visit to this island and village. Perhaps there were just too many other physical presences around me this time.

I turned to embrace Roana though, closing my eyes, allowing past and present to powerfully suffuse me. I felt complete now—whole in a way I never had before.

There was just one detail left.

"Come," I invited, content to leave my family's past to be shared with everyone now as I led Roana and our dragons back outside. I actually liked the house we had up north better—no smoke just drifting loose without a metal uptake for one thing, filling the rafters as it tried to find the hole in the roof to escape through.

Stepping once more into a crowded commons amid sunshine and broken clouds, "Lance . . ." I now heard a familiar someone call beside me.

"Melanie," I replied, not all that surprised to hear her voice . . . this time.

"Quite the party you have going here," she complimented, wearing a child carrier herself this time with a much smaller infant in it. "A lot bigger than the event we had. But you weren't running a tribe back then, especially a wealthy one."

"We're only wealthy on the Outside," I reminded her. "But this must be . . ."

"Alexandra," she said, glancing behind her, "Alex, for short—the daughter you saved by not drugging me. Doug wanted to name her in honor of his grandmother, and because the abbreviated name sounded hip, maybe giving her an edge in life. Surprisingly, I couldn't disagree."

"That is surprising," I quipped.

"It's been all over this morning that you two also have one now," she added.

"She was born yesterday, premature," my mate replied, opening the sash against her just enough to show our snoozing preemie's head and one gently flexing little hand.

"What is she not doing in an incubator?" my ex remarked, amazed.

"Our doctor has bush experience in Africa," Roana answered. "Says this is more healthful and nurturing for them than a sterile incubator. I personally agree. She would still be surrounded by me anyway if my body hadn't pushed her out early."

"And here I was, not permitted to take Alex home for three days, and hardly permitted to hold her after delivery," Melanie sighed.

"Next birth, come to the village, my invitation," my mate offered to my surprise. "Nothing will get in the way between you and your child."

"That is tempting," my ex noted. "But I'm not sure if I want another one. Vacation maybe?" she mused.

"Of course," Roana agreed, to my shock. "Just talk with your assigned Outside Guardian, and they can make the necessary arrangements."

"Lance . . ." Melanie then said, almost biting her lip. "You've got something good here, very good . . . And I misjudged you."

"Unfortunately, I'm still marrying him today," Roana gently reminded her with a smile, "as well as renewing my claim on him as his mate."

"I know," Melanie replied with a smile herself. "Doug's okay," she sighed, as we saw him a short distance away, being introduced by an Outside Guardian and a villager to a Nightmare. "But if I'd found all this, before . . ." she added, looking around.

"I would have still driven you up a wall," I gently said, "dragons, or no dragons."

"As I was doing to you throughout," Melanie confessed as she threw her arms around me . . . with Roana calmly allowing it.

"You'll live well on those cosmetic patents, though," I tried to console my ex.

"I've already sold them to Gerhart Pharma," she said to my surprise, "in exchange for full Outside Berker citizenship for my family, a home in the Barony part-time—at least for getaways—and R&D jobs for life with Gerhart Technologies, in Linköping, Sweden for now, plus some cash to get us started anew. Blame my talk with Substance."

"I am . . ." Roana quietly noted beside me in a less than pleased way.

"Well," my redheaded ex then said, letting go and seemingly feeling better for having hugged me, "I better let you two get on with your big day. But see you around, and even on the island again sometime."

As we then both watched her leave, "She and Doug are bunking with Frelsari and Helga when they come," Roana quietly said to me. "Our house is full as far as she's concerned, even if I have to borrow Tor and his family back for the duration."

"Definitely . . ." I agreed.

— — — — —

As we then made our way towards the stone stairs to tour the Mead Hall before our own big event, Roana and I saw the one person whom that event just wouldn't be complete without.

"Onkel!" Roana quietly exclaimed, overjoyed to finally see the man who had brought her and I together . . . Johannsen.

"Roana . . ." the elderly man said with emotion, wearing his finest Norwegian black bunad and white lederhosen for the occasion as the two moved to greet one another.

"Careful," Roana warned as they embraced though. "I have my premature daughter tucked in here," she said, glancing at the sash across her shoulder that ran across her chest underneath her dress. "Go on, you can look," she smiled as she carefully opened the sash with a hand to reveal our tiny, snoozing girl lying against her.

"Lance . . ." Johannsen was then soon greeting me as I moved near them. I didn't know what to call him now as he turned to warmly embrace me as well.

"I don't know where to begin," I confessed to him.

"You don't have to say a 'ting," he assured me in his lilting Norwegian accent. "All this today," he said, looking around, "and especially Roana's happiness, plus a grandniece now . . . I am just as speechless as you."

"You take care of all the catering?" I quipped.

"I _oversaw_ the catering," he qualified, "and arranging the hotels and inns, all de vay up to Bergen! This is an Oslo-sized convention, this is! Thank goodness the military and the Barony handled all the boats from various harbours, along vith I.D. checks, to get people here."

"You saved me," I then said to him.

"You just had to say yes to it all," he gently countered with a smile, looking at me over his half-rimmed glasses. "But Lance, Roana," he then said, his warm tone changing somewhat, "I vould like to come home with you for a vhile . . . to just be among the dragons. I have not been feeling so good. And, since my Marit died, I have been missing a sense of family. I could at least use a vacation myself now," he tried to joke more brightly, "having given them to others for so long."

"You are welcome in our home, Onkel," Roana warmly assured as we both gently embraced him. "And we have a housemate who is as good with healing ways as I am. You will be better."

Johannsen now almost seemed to quiver with age now as we held him.

"Marta," my mate called to her with concern, as we noticed her nearby.

"Yes?" our village physician answered as she came toward us.

"Could you check on my uncle here?" Roana requested. "He's not feeling so well."

"I am not missing the ceremony," Johannsen gently insisted though.

"You von't," Marta assured, extending a supportive arm around him as she now ushered him away. "Ve have a medical tent, right nearby."

Roana and I overheard Johannsen quietly mention the word 'kreft', Norwegian for cancer, as he left us in Marta's care.

"Lance," my mate said, still watching him go, "we owe him."

"He will enjoy our paradise," I assured her, "for as long as he wants. Who knows? We might even be able to return the favour he has given us, with Tana."

"You and I are really beginning to think alike now, my sir," my mate noted, glancing at me. "That's scary."

— — — — —

Before long, Roana, myself, and our dragons had ascended the stone stairs and were checking out the Mead Hall as dozens, if not hundreds of fellow Berkers around us were doing as well.

"Lance," my mate whispered next to me as I was admiring the stone statue pillars, as well as the wood fire roaring once again within the large pit in the middle of the space, "look at that cake!"

At the end of an incredible buffet spread on a series of tables along the centre of the hall, all draped in white linen, was the largest multi-tiered white wedding cake I had ever seen.

"Uncle likely put so much effort into that," she sighed. "He probably wanted to show it to us himself."

"And he is," we heard behind us, turning to see Johannsen now more comfortably sitting in a wheelchair and still being attended to by Marta.

"Onkel, takk . . . tusen takk," Roana said, moving to gently embrace him.

"You're velcome," the elderly man gratefully replied. "You both are."

As Roana moved back beside me, Johannsen and Marta glanced at one another, with him giving her a subtle nod.

"Your uncle vill be joining us . . . for hospice care," Marta said slowly. "He's told me he has bone cancer."

"I have done enough vorking," he sighed pleasantly, almost with relief. "It is time for me to live vith the dragons I have spent a lifetime protecting on the Outside."

"And to experience our healing," Substance added beside us. "We dragons shall do battle against your cancer now. A new chapter of your life begins with us. It is not over yet."

With a tear in his eye, Johannsen just extended his arms towards Substance as she moved to share a powerful nudge and embrace with him. I could almost feel the old man's strength and will returning to him. Substance would be his healer now, along with Marta, Roana and all the rest of us.

My dragon was right. Johannsen's life was not over yet.

"There are others among us who would like to know such miracles, or at least comfort," the baroness now quietly added beside me.

"Consider it done," I replied without hesitation as we continued to watch them. "A hospice house or two in the village, living in our caves with the dragons, arranged dragon visits to the Outside—we will work with you to make it all happen. It will mean as much to them, especially to our maimed, as it will to those of you from the Outside."

"I might want to die in a dragon's care," she noted as I glanced at her with uncertainty. "Not yet," she assured me though.

I put an arm warmly around Jarldis, drawing her against my side me as I took in the miracle, the heaven that was already happening around us in that Mead Hall. Dragon and human . . . joyously co-existing, even celebrating together, in peace.

Substance issued a loud bellow that resonated throughout the hall. "Please gather outside," she then loudly proclaimed. "Ceremony about to begin."

A tide of humanity and dragons then began moving back out through the tall doors of the Mead Hall.

"Nice replicas," I admired, looking at the weathered but stout wooden doors.

"Those are the originals," the baroness noted with pleasure. "Just as Hiccup left them. Surprisingly, they only needed a little touching up, here and there . . . along with new hinges."

As we moved past the doors ourselves, I could help laying a hand on one of them, just as scores of my ancestors once had.

"Pardon me, Baroness," Roana interjected as she gently moved in between Jarldis and I, "but I need to borrow this man back for a ceremony he invited me into."

I just smiled as Roana and the baroness warmly embraced before my mate reclaimed her rightful place at my side as we now stood at the top of the stairs, surrounded by throngs both within the Mead Hall, as well as over a thousand more below on the open hillside amid the tents.

Substance now moved to one side, turning to face us as Marta wheeled Johannsen up beside my dragon for the best seat in the house, while Rökkr came up beside Roana and Spring drew beside me. I couldn't have asked for a more appropriate wedding party, and they had assembled all on their own.

"Allir!" Substance loudly said in our Norse, surprising me a little as she got everyone's attention once more, before switching her deep voice to English. "We gather here today, in triumphal celebration of survival of our people, and the union of two to whom we owe everything. Roana has waited long and patiently, and Lance has resisted much," she said to everyone's laughter as others translated her words this time.

"But both fought to protect us, and lead us in a new, needed direction," my dragon continued. "Their journey together has only just begun. But it is that journey we honour, and solemnize. Of all the vows, promises, expressions of love I have come to know . . . none seem better than the vows of your ancestors, Lance, that I now invite you to revive once more, and live yourselves . . ."

"Vit lifum eins og einn," I now said as I turned towards Roana as a microphone was held near us.

"Vit berjast sem einn," Roana said in front of me.

"Og vit elskum eins og einn," I pledged.

"Eilífu," Roana finished.

"So Spirit let it be," Substance pronounced as Roana and I then moved to gently kiss and embrace one another.

It was the simplest, most straightforward, and yet most perfect wedding ceremony I could ever ask for. But amid everything, our gold rings remained on our fingers the whole time. We had simply forgotten to take them off.

As we ended our public marital kiss, Roana extended an arm around my back, gently turning me towards a cluster of microphones placed at the top of the stairs, gesturing with her eyes between me and the crowd.

I wasn't getting off so easily.

"Allir. Everyone," I said, translating in at least one of the Nordic languages for myself while Roana remained beside me to translate into Bokmål, "Ek kom til þín fyrir ári sítan, óákvetinn greinir í ensku óafvitandi arf af okkar gotsagnakenndur fortít. I came to you a year ago, an unknowing legacy of our mythic past. Ek fann fólk, at þjót, sem hafti lifat breytingu á aldri. I found a people, a nation, that had survived a change of ages. Hjarta mitt var tamit, mildatur, þroskast, frá því utanatkomandi, til höftingi sem þú valdir eftir versta strít ættkvísl okkar hefur nokkru sinni þekkt. My heart was tamed, tempered, matured, from that of an Outsider, to the chief you chose after the most terrible warfare our tribe has ever known.

"þat eru oft ek hef ekki vitat hvort ek eiga skilit at vera höftingi gefit harmleikur og breyting sem ek hef fært þér. There are times I have not known if I deserve to be your chief with the tragedy and change I have brought to you," I continued as Roana put an arm supportively around me, drawing closer. "En ef ekkert annat, okkar fólk eiga skilit at vera sannarlega allir samhuga sem einn, eins og þú ert í dag, og drekar okkar eiga skilit at vera þekkt og þykja vænt eins Dásamlegt verur og jafningja. But if nothing else, our people deserve to be truly united as one, as you are today, and our dragons deserve to be known and cherished as the wondrous beings and equals they are.

"Roana og ek get ateins þjóna þér, saman. Roana and I can only serve you, together," I said, looking and even turning towards her now. "En ek gat ekki betit um meira fullkominn náungi höftingi at hjálpa koma okkur öllum til svo björt og efnilegur framtít. But I could not ask for a more perfect fellow chief to help bring us all into such a bright and promising future. Roana, félagi minn, og konan mín . . . Ek ast þu. Roana, my mate, and my wife . . . I love you."

"Ek ast þu," she warmly replied as the microphones caused her voice to echo down the hill before us, " . . . Lance mín, og líf mitt."

The collective roar that then surged all around us was even louder than before, as Roana and I kissed once more.

But there was now one small person who was moving between us with a silent but surprising strength, refusing to be ignored anymore.

With loving care, and deep, fatherly pride, I gently removed my tiny daughter from her protective sling against Roana's upper chest.

"Lance, it is time to name her," my wife gently advised.

"Ván," I said as we both looked at her, " . . . but it just doesn't sound all that good."

"Hope does though," my mate encouraged.

Then, carefully positioning our infant girl within my hands to face forward, I turned towards the crowd arrayed down the hillside before us, saying just one word . . . my daughter's name.

"Hope!" I proclaimed as I held my daughter up before everyone, to an even louder roar.

Not holding her up there for long at all, I soon brought my daughter, Hope, back down, nestling her against my own chest within my red and white ceremonial tunic as Roana warmly looked at her next to me, all three of us gathering close together.

It could not have been a more perfect moment.

But if I had to pick one to dwell in forever . . . it would have been any one of the many more moments Roana, I, Hope, Spring, Substance, Rökkr, Tana, Tvö Hoffüt, and Johannsen—whom I finally learned had Lars for a first name—all continued to share back at our home in New Berk.

Winter, spring, summer, or fall. Waking up in the mornings, working during the day, or relaxing in the evenings. It all could not have, and has not been, a more perfect love and life . . .

"Lance, you still on the computer?" I now hear though. "It's time to go."

_To be continued . . ._


	49. Chapter 49

"Sorry, coming," I sigh in response, stirring from the memories I've been reliving and transcribing. It is years, even decades later now as I close, unplug and pack up my laptop at Hiccup's drafting table in the loft of our house.

Our children have grown. But as I see this manuscript is over a thousand pages, even on screen, that is a story I might have to write separately some day . . . if I'm able to get to it. This story covering my first and most eventful year in New Berk alone has taken me nearly three years to type out off and on. As Roana reminds me however, there are a lot of historical, even ancient stories and documents that I'm supposed to be transcribing and translating from our archives, since I took on the role of assisting tribal archivist alongside Substance some time ago in addition to my biological work and chief's duties.

I can't help continuing to think on all that has been done, as well as all there is yet to do, as I descend the steep but familiar log with hand-hewn steps that constitutes the stairway to our loft.

"You done with our story?" Roana wonders as she shoulders a duffel bag for our trip near our front door. "Because you won't likely be able to get back to it for a while, between visiting Spring and Hope, and hopefully enjoying a vacation with me," she hints, "on the Outside."

"I'm done with it enough up to what is still the greatest day of my life," I smile, coming up beside my mate and wife.

"The rest of them since have been pretty good, too, haven't they?" she queries with a smile as well.

"Yeah," I agree, drawing her into a warm embrace as we share a kiss.

"Your duffel bag's right behind you," she adds, "all packed. I even tacked up your dragon for you."

"Make me feel guilty," I sigh.

"Just my way of helping you write our story," she assures. "But come, Spring is waiting."

Spring. Where do I begin with him? He came to master Norse, English and both primary modern Norwegian dialects . . . albeit with a residual dragon accent and manner of speaking. Fulfilling my fondest hopes for him, he eventually graduated from the Royal Norwegian Naval Academy . . . just remotely, with a small class of human Berkers, coming to rely on a female Outside Berker classmate to take dictation for him when his wielding an ink brush proved not to be up to the task. Naval instructors cleared to visit and teach him at a secluded Outside Berker school were satisfied he was doing the work and answering the tests though, especially as they began making his exams oral.

His stellar academic achievement however was the senior thesis he dictated. It impressed not only his instructors, but the Barony and even the Defence Ministry in Oslo as well, and has become a fundamental element of our tribe and nation's overall strategy ever since. In his thesis, Spring successfully argued that Dragons and Riders should be moved between New Berk and Dragon Island by ship rather than flying themselves, to minimize risk of Outsider detection. He went on to state that this would allow for a freer and farther-ranging means of clandestinely transporting dragons as well, even in broad daylight and within sight of Outsiders, for medical treatment, relocation, or any other reason.

"I want to work on ships," he quietly confided to me one day as his inspiration in coming up with it all. I just think he took note how well the trip I had orchestrated on the carrier worked for my wedding feast years ago . . . that, and he found a love of the sea and ships all his own.

But his strategic thinking and its wholesale adoption catapulted him beyond the initial officer rank of Fenrik upon graduation right to Løytnant. He received an initial posting as an aide de camp to my cousin, overseeing the transformation and expansion of our island FSK unit into a Coast Ranger KJK unit to patrol among our three far-flung island territories spread along the Norwegian coast, as well as testing the increasingly routine transport of dragons between New Berk and Dragon Island on a variety of naval and coast guard ships with cleared crews over a number of years.

Now though, Spring's work and consistent advocacy has resulted in a new ship, the first Berk has had in a thousand years. And today, Roana and I are on our way to voyage abroad on it, to North America no less.

"You have to bring that?" Roana sighs, looking at the black laptop bag now slung over my shoulder. "This is supposed to be our vacation, even sabbatical. You know, the cruise you've been promising we'd take one day?"

"Just mostly to finish up and email some work," I pledge. "Then it should be packed away for a good while."

"Or Rökkr and I will fling it over the side," my mate warns.

"You did marry an academic," I note, kissing Roana to mollify her. She can't avoid cracking a smile.

"I married much more than that," she warmly replies as we both turn towards our dragons amid a house that seems all too empty now. Uncle Lars Johannsen was the first to leave us, passing peacefully in this home. I had never seen a man more happy in his final few years on Earth though than he was with us. A lifetime spent concealing yet carefully revealing dragons on the Outside was rewarded with their nearly constant, even grateful presence around him. There wasn't a day that went by when he didn't have a smile on his face in their company. Many came to simply visit him, even from the caves as grunt was spread among them. He never understood or spoke a word of their language, but he didn't really need to. Even as his body slowly failed him, the dragons truly healed Lars in spirit, and so much more . . . to the point where his last word to our family gathered around him was, "Feire . . ." Celebrate. Something he had definitely been doing the whole time.

Tana passed some years ago as well though, as did Tvö Hoffüt. Both of them always liked to remain occupied and useful no matter what, even right to the end. Roana and I had to get increasingly inventive as we'd bring Tana cups to wash and clothes to just fold as she sat against her dragon in their bedding. And no matter how weak he became, Tvö Hoffüt was always up for thawing or cooking food, as well as quickly drying out wet firewood, even if he did accidentally wind up lighting it now and then—one head always providing the spark and the other the gas to make a steady flame. One spring day, that Zippleback wanted to go out to the fields once more to dig furrows and help plant crops as he had been doing with Tana for some time, even though she had already passed. All it took was me looking at Roana, and we got a small army together to help him out our front door, down our porch steps, onto a wheel platform and up beyond the village to those fields. Very slowly, he once again dug his long claws into the earth . . . and just stopped, his two heads slowly coming to rest upon a place where he felt both useful and needed.

We broke with tradition that spring, honouring and cremating Tvö Hoffüt right where he stopped in that field. He is helping us grow our crops there still.

Even our only human child, Hope, has grown up and been gone for over a decade. Roana and I enjoyed our solitude for a while with Rökkr and Substance, but now we find a desire for something else . . . and having family around, even in close quarters at sea.

Emerging out the wide front door of our house onto our porch and front steps, I take another look around our busy village as dragons and villagers go about their daily activities. While still looking the same, our houses are now wired for limited solar, wind and methane-generated electricity. We have also modernized to eco-friendly low-flow toilets, even 'flush platforms' for the dragons that drop it all down a drain, still using a minimum of water. And yes, we even have washing machines. It all feeds into a compact, state-of-the art underground sewage digester on the island that safely removes toxins while rapidly composting even dragon manure into a more efficient natural fertilizer for our farming fields and pastures. The digester also provides usable methane and recycles the water for more flushing and washing in what is almost a closed system.

I count these modernizations as among the biggest victories of my life though—after saving the dragons—with Roana finally surrendering on the washing machine as Tana declined and we had to do everything in the house ourselves, as well as continuing with our duties around the village and island. My winning argument turned out to be the dragons, which I pointed out came to represent a huge advancement in Viking life over previous practices in Hiccup's day in terms of fishing, farming, construction assistance, and certainly defence. Studies I performed revealing growing biological cross-contamination between our house latrine pits and cracking underground water cisterns didn't hurt either.

Roana still won't permit a microwave oven or electric range in our house though, and most other villagers keep modern conveniences to a minimum as well. I agree with them on those scores, as I've kept televisions and commercial radios off our island, encouraging evening story and song gatherings with Substance's help instead—not that broadcast reception was very good in our mountain-ringed valley in the first place. Even our island military and their families though have come to appreciate the relative peace and isolation. Anyone who really wants to find out the latest news or entertainment is welcomed to fly over on a dragon to the lifeboat station, always to a warm welcome by the station crew . . . and pick up our regular mail while they're there, as we've cut helicopter flights to a minimum. It became difficult to publicly explain why helicopters were continuing to almost routinely fly in and out of what was supposed to be a quarantined wildlife refuge.

Those who have come to us from the Outside have fictitious post office box addresses elsewhere in the Barony that are forwarded to the lifeboat station, as well as homes in the countryside they can borrow to occasionally entertain Outside relatives. Marta recently held a festive reunion for her family and friends around her seventieth birthday in a borrowed Outside Berker house. But Miles O'Connell chose to continue remaining dead to his relatives and everyone else, given his remote life with Ilsa and Garrison on Dragon Island.

"Don't need Christmas and birthday stuff with only one hand to pick it all up with anyway," he joked during one of my visits to him.

Do I regret bringing the change I have to this ancient island and people? I still have twinges of remorse now and then, and I will always treasure my first months in this place when it was a virtually undisturbed Viking and saurian Shangri La. But somehow, the more we import from the Outside, the more tightly we cherish and cling to our traditions and identity.

"Ready?" my wife invites, stirring me from my thoughts again as she hands me my flying jacket before mounting her dragon. After years of trying, and debating with Roana, I was finally able to retire that chief's bearskin cloak for preservation in our archives, except for the highest ceremonial occasions on our island. The leather chief's strap of office and crest I routinely wear around my neck, as the dragons do theirs, is much nicer.

Cinching down the netting over the one large duffel bag I'm bringing on Substance's back, I take one more look around the village. Even though I've left our island barely two or three times a year, each time I do I still find myself just wanting to stay. I guess that is my own battle with change I will always have to fight.

Substance though is eager for another sea voyage. "I like relaxing and letting ship do the moving," she tells me, with us having travelled on select Norwegian military vessels at times with Spring as we've visited our southern islands. While Dragon Island remains a quarantined refuge and an officially dragon-administered territory within the Berk nation, Old Berk is doing very well as a historic park and our number one tourist attraction, complete with a boat ride to and from the island. We even routinely send craftspeople down from New Berk to give the place an authentic flavour, from constructing additional Berker houses to making traditional crafts, even mead tea by the cauldron. Any dragon companions of theirs just vacation over on Dragon Island for the duration our craftsfolk are down in Old Berk. Everyone's happy.

We've also started overnight 'Berk & Breakfast' experiences at Old Berk that are now selling out through the summer seasons. Guests staying in some of the replica houses are practically straining at night, looking for mythical dragons in the skies after hearing our fireside stories about them. With the dragons' help, we have that show down just about right now as ghostly dragon apparitions occasionally soar within the fog or clouds, or as brief, dark shadows across starry skies.

One day, they won't have to hide like that any longer. But it's a start, and a real step up from the past.

Now, simply drawing the front door of our house closed behind us on New Berk, Roana and I mount our dragons as a number of villagers gather to see us off. We will be gone for months this time—the longest trip we've ever taken. With a few friendly words and waves of our hands, we take to the skies onboard our dragons as Substance and Rökkr turn us westwards towards a sleek and very modern vessel painted in a light grey that is cruising slowly offshore.

"Inform Spring we're approaching," I request to Substance.

"Already have. Landing approved," she confirms. Dragon Radio, we call it—superior to conventional radio, and undetectable by most any NATO or other military sensors. We haven't been using walkie-talkies or even secured radios in years now, except with the lifeboat station or other non-dragon equipped units. I kept forgetting to clip the stupid things to my jackets anyway.

As I aim Substance for the broad helicopter platform occupying the ship's entire stern, I briefly take time to appreciate this vessel in full. Her sharp bow seems to effortlessly slice through the sea. The long, flat, angled sides and superstructure, as well as minimal mast and embedded engine uptakes, hide her from Outsider radar. And finally, her square stern, albeit with narrow protruding sponsons on either side, provide an ample landing place for the dragons and more. In total, the ship looks like she is as ready to take off into space as she is to cross the ocean. Surmounting it all though is the blue Berk standard flying proudly, with the mostly red Norwegian ensign just in front it, both suspended behind the ship's single mast.

Rökkr and Substance easily set us down upon the landing platform. As I dismount, I notice that the entire deck is covered with smooth, black, rubbery Neoprene panels that are easy on the feet, shed water readily, but are very skid resistant. Another dragon-led innovation. The ship's angled hangar door then rolls upward, with a few human crewmembers stepping out to greet us. Surprisingly though, Spring is not among them.

"Welcome onboard the Berk Patrol and Research Ship, Drekar," the senior officer, a trim, red-haired woman in her late thirties, greets us. "The captain sends his apologies, but he is occupied on the bridge right now. Allow me to show you to your quarters though."

Wearing a tan naval khaki uniform with a black sweater, I notice the three broad gold stripes and loop on her epaulets. "Congratulations on your promotion, Orlogskaptein," I warmly commend, knowing the woman fairly well.

"Thank you, sir," the officer smiles. "New ship, new rank," she shrugs. "Come."

She then leads us forward into the hangar, which is painted a light green inside. Once we're past its large retractable door, "Watch the open ramp on your left," she cautions, even though there is a single cable stretched at waist level among stanchions along the deck, guarding most of the descending ramp's length.

I look back down the ramp as we pass to see a number of dragons of various breeds and their KJK riders in field battle dress below, as well as two eleven-metre Rigid-Hulled Inflatable Boats or RHIBs along the port side, all on a large lower deck that seems to extend right to the ship's stern.

"That's our Mission Space below," our guide explains. "It can be used to house our KJK dragon unit, as it is right now, as well as a KJK boat assault unit that's also there. There's a portal on the starboard side that opens to launch dragons, as well as boats, probes or submersibles—the boats and submersibles via cradles that move under a series of overhead tracks and extendable booms throughout the space. There's also a broad, drop-down stern ramp we custom-designed to allow either boat or dragon deployments and landings rapidly in and out of the ship, enabling dragons to land or take-off without being seen as much as they would on the helo deck above. Along with our forward berthing spaces, the Mission Space, as well as the hangar above here, can also house dragons for general transport or relocation, even large-scale emergency medical treatment. Plus this ramp inside the hangar here can rise and become part of the hangar deck to hide dragons below when we have to host non-cleared visitors onboard."

"Impressive," I note.

The woman then presses a large red button on what looks like a hatch door as a pair of large doors then swing and slide open on rails and hydraulic arms to reveal a still practically hangar-sized crew mess or dining and lounge space that is also painted a uniform light green and is well lit. At the far end of this mess space, there is a tall and wide corridor that seems to run the entire rest of the superstructure, as well as ramps either side of the corridor that lead to the upper and lower decks.

"The Drekar is a lengthened, frigate-sized version of the American 'Freedom' Littoral Combat Ship or corvette," our female guide explains. "Its multi-role design and internal flexibility was ideal for our needs. The Defence Ministry in Oslo was originally offering us a Coast Guard new-build to adapt, but when we saw one of this type, we knew this was what we wanted. Since they were considering this type anyway, as you know, the Ministry agreed to cover a third of the capital cost and a third of the operating costs to evaluate this vessel as we operate it.

"For us though, the hull and superstructure were basically perfect," she continues, "allowing us to freely reconfigure the internal decks and corridors so that even the largest Nightmares and Nadders can fit throughout most of the ship with ease. In addition to a modified and enlarged bridge, there are generous ramps as well as ladders between decks, plus labs for the oceanographic research this ship was partly built for as a public cover, and powerful multi-purpose sonar for both seafloor mapping and military uses."

"You were on the project team?" I ask.

"Yes," she confirms. "Overall design lead, reporting directly to Admiral Husa—his last project as you know, before his retirement."

"Oh, he is anything but retired with us now," I smile.

When Spring decided to join and study with the Royal Norwegian Navy rather than the Air Force, both the baroness and the king had felt that my air force cousin should be reassigned to the navy to become Spring's flag commander—watching over, liaising for, and shielding my dragon son when necessary. This naturally precipitated switching our island Air Force FSK unit to the navy as well, becoming our KJK Coast Ranger unit. Roana's inter-service FSA intelligence status remained unaffected however.

"Allow me to lead you up to your quarters," our escorting female officer continues, glancing over her shoulder as she leads us through the mess area toward the upward inclining ramp. A few dragons of various breeds as well as human Berkers are eating lunch amid a mixture of tables and benches along the edges, with floor mattresses for dragons and their human companions to lounge on arrayed through much of the rest of the space.

"Bardaga stötvar! Bardaga stötvar!" we then hear via the ship's speakers, accompanied by an electronic alarm and red lights that begin sounding and flashing throughout the ship.

"Excuse me," the woman suddenly apologises. "I am needed on the bridge."

"May we join you?" I ask.

"Of course," the officer replies as she began walking faster up the ramp. "You are welcome on the bridge, Chief. Just drop your bags in Cabin Four, back along the Bridge Deck corridor, starboard side. There is room for all of you on the bridge. See you there," she finishes as she takes off up the ramp at a run now as dragons and the rest of the human crew go off in various directions.

"A battle alert?" I wonder to Roana though. "Here?"

"We are on a prime Russian submarine route between the Arctic and Atlantic," my mate reminds me. "But it could also be a drill to test the crew and systems. This is the ship's maiden voyage, after all."

Roana and I now ascend the ramp as well, followed single file by our dragons still bearing our duffel bags on their backs. Turning left into the roomy Bridge Deck corridor, we soon find and open a broad door simply labelled, '4'.

"Very nice," I remark, noting spacious yet cosy feeling of the room, painted yet again in light green, and seeing floor mattresses and bedding neatly laid out for all four of us.

"Later," my mate says as she quickly undoes the netting and removes her duffel bag off Rökkr's back as I do the same for Substance.

Finally we move forward along the corridor, still with silently flashing red lights, and enter the spacious bridge, with forward-angled windows arrayed across its entire front and wings running right from the floor to the overhead.

"Höftingi á brúnni," a human crewman announces. Chief on the bridge. I could never escape that darned introduction, no matter the language, whenever I entered the bridge of any military or other government vessel.

With plenty of open space, this bridge is more like that of a cruise ship than the military vessels I've been on. Towards the centre rear is an advanced helm station where a human crewman stands, and forward of that is a sleek, dark and angled central panel set against the windows, containing what look like radar, navigation, engineering and visual status displays. The Executive Officer who had greeted us now stands monitoring this panel as to her right, the ship's captain is looking out one of the large windows.

This is no ordinary captain however.

"Mother, Father," the captain formally acknowledges, seemingly deep in concentration though as he looks out the window.

"Kommandørkaptein Ýsa," I acknowledge, barely containing my pride at finally seeing the three and a half gold stripes and loop on my son's slightly oversized epaulets, mounted on a broad, black leather strap that spans his black, leathery shoulders and wraps around each of his forelegs, serving as his naval uniform.

"Come right," Spring now orders in English. "Course Three Zero Zero, speed twenty-five knots."

"Coming right to course Three Zero Zero," the human helmsman echoes in clear English to my surprise as he turns the ship's wheel. "Accelerating to twenty five knots," the Executive Officer replies while moving a pair of levers forward on her panel.

I happen to glance at the X.O.'s panel, seeing two Night Furies as well as a Nightmare and a Nadder on one of the visual monitors, all now streaming out of the ship's lowered stern ramp.

"Conn, Sonar. Lost contact," we now hear from a darkened alcove behind the helm station to our right. "Target has gone quiet."

"Conn aye," Spring acknowledges. "Come left to Two One Zero," he then quickly orders.

"Coming left to Two One Zero," the helmsman replies, turning the wheel again as the ship now turns even more sharply in that direction.

A moment of silence now pervades the bridge as ship straightens out and the helmsman reports, "Steady on Two One Zero." I now look out the windows to see the two Night Furies taking up station, flying just off either side of the ship's bow—the one to port with a rider, the other to starboard without. There is a compact 76-millimetre automatic gun on the foredeck ahead of the bridge, as is the case with even most ocean-going Coast Guard vessels. But with our dragons in the air, I sense it might never be needed.

Spring continues looking almost at the ship's bow out the windows, deep in concentration.

"Surface vessel approaching," the X.O. reports, looking at the radar display in front of her. "Bearing One Nine Zero, distance twenty miles, course Zero One Zero, speed fifteen knots."

"Ignore. Fishing vessel," Spring seems to rapidly determine. "Right to Two Six Zero, slow to fifteen knots," he then orders, looking almost vacantly now as his concentration seems to deepen.

"Right to Two Six Zero . . . Slowing to fifteen knots," come the replies.

"Sonar, train single active pulse," Spring then orders. "Bearing Two Seven Zero True, sixty degrees down angle."

"Sonar ready," a voice in the alcove confirms.

"Sound ping," Spring orders. "Sonar on speakers, please."

As the Executive Officer next to him hits a couple buttons on her panel, we hear a single clear sonar pulse . . . and then a single almost thumping echo of that same pulse. Soon, some quiet machinery noise is heard, followed by what sounds like a whoosh.

"Conn, Sonar. Target re-detected," we hear. "Launch bearing Two Seven Zero! Object rapidly coming shallow!"

"Conn aye," Spring confirms. He then looks toward the Night Fury off our starboard bow as that dragon peels away to the right, while the deck gun doesn't even move. Seconds later, a slim, black and white missile is breaking the surface as the Night Fury is already firing, destroying it with a concentrated blast before the missile rises even five metres into the air.

"Conn, Sonar. Main target now turning right to parallel course and coming shallow as well," the alcove reports as the Night Fury off our starboard bow calmly angles back, resuming its aerial station near us.

"Valkyrie, Valkyrie, this is Sea Ice. We confirm targeting and missile interception," all of us then immediately hear on the bridge radio speakers, said with a slight Scandinavian accent. "Is Captain Ýsa there? Over."

"Computer, VOX," Spring then requests in his deep dragon voice.

"Please restate command," a soothing female computer voice replies.

"Computer, _VOX_," Spring repeats more insistently.

"Please restate command," the computer voice repeats as well.

Spring just gives an irritated look to the X.O. next to him, who now hits some buttons on her panel. "You're on," the X.O. reports.

"This is Captain Ýsa, over," he now confirms.

"Captain, this is NATO Supreme Commander Collins," a different voice on the radio now says, with an American accent this time. "If I hadn't just seen what I have for myself, I wouldn't have believed it."

Happening to glance to the right, I now see a black mast break the surface of the sea near the ship at speed, kicking up spray before it. Soon it is followed by the rising long black sail of a submarine, kicking up even more spray as it slices through the sea, paralleling us at the same speed.

"You zeroed in and lit us up like none of our other A.S.W. forces have," the Supreme Commander radioes. "No one gets these Swedish Gotland boats when they go quiet, and our test cruise missile didn't even have a chance."

"Sub crews cannot silence their thoughts, nor skippers their commands," Spring replies. "Now that I know what to tune in and sense for, I can detect subs and know what they launch most anywhere."

"That skill is now top secret, Captain," the general radioes. "You will need to work on making your detection and approach of opponent subs appear more random, even flukish—and rare, except when needed or ordered. You were tracking us a little too precisely. Over."

"Understood, General. Over," Spring confirmed.

"Expect a rendezvous and visit during your Atlantic transit with ComNavSurfLant from Norfolk, possibly a team with him, as well as further exercises. Over," the radio continues.

"Bear in mind we also have covert diplomatic mission for Berk, General. Over," Spring notes, still looking ahead.

"I'm aware of that," the general replies on the radio. "I'll be adding a NATO liaison officer to the helo flight already scheduled to rendezvous with you tomorrow. He will work out the details between you, Berk, and us, especially as you have the Berk leadership onboard. It's the least you can do, considering you will be getting a Virginia-class sub escort for your crossing, over."

"Very well, sir. Over," Spring accepts.

"Bon voyage, Valkyrie, and again, congratulations, Captain. Collins out," the radio concludes.

Its black conning tower still only half piercing the surface, the sub now turns away to starboard, re-submerging, as the two dragons off our bow each bank away as well back towards the stern. On the bridge, our X.O. switches off the radio's VOX speakers.

"P.A. speaker, please," Spring then requests as the X.O. presses a couple more buttons in front of her before nodding back to him.

"This is Captain," Spring says, his deep voice now echoing on speakers around the ship. "Secure from Battle Stations. Well done all. Very good drill. Carry on." He then nods to the X.O. and she switches the speaker off.

"Computer speech recognition still needs work," Spring sighs to his X.O.

"I'll liaise with Gerhard Technologies," she assures. "Hopefully by the time we arrive in Halifax or Boston, they can meet us with a fix."

"Set their deadline Halifax," he says. "We proceed to Northwest Passage from there. If we go Boston, SurfLant will drag us to Norfolk. We don't need that much hiding among uncleared."

"Yes sir," the first officer smiles.

"Mom, Dad, family," Spring says, turning his head part way toward the four of us, "you have lunch?"

"I'm fine," I respond.

"I wouldn't mind a little something," Roana notes as Rökkr and Substance seem to murmur in Dragon they'd like a little something, too. I've learned to catch bits of their language now and then, but most of it still eludes me.

"Dad," Spring then says to me, "could I see you a moment? Tyrah, could you escort Mom and family to mess for lunch?"

"Of course," the redheaded X.O. accepts.

"Erika," Spring then says to a junior blonde female officer on the bridge with us, "you have conn. Make course for rendezvous with helo from Ørland tomorrow."

"Yes sir," the young officer accepts as she steps forward and begins to order the necessary course and speed changes while Spring leads me back along the corridor off the bridge. We then turn up a black ramp to the next deck above. Pressing a large red button with his snout, another pair of hydraulic doors slide open to reveal a further black space with angled louvered grills to the outside arrayed all along its front and sides, as the loud whirring of large intake fans diminishes around us.

"This air intake space for gas turbines and diesels below," Spring explains. "Turbines shutting off. We run just on diesels now for cruising. This also Dragon Promenade," he sighs. "Only place we can come for fresh air when in port or visible among uncleared. Had this space expanded and redesigned for us myself."

No other dragons were here though, as we weren't in the proximity of any Outsiders at the moment.

"So, how's it going, Son?" I warmly ask him.

"Miss island life," he says. "I want this life, on Outside, ever since carrier trip years ago. But now, my thoughts turn to family, and home. Hiding here like this, watching busy cities . . . it gets old after while."

"Well, you can always retire," I suggest. "Theoretically you only have five more years until you'd be eligible."

"Navy, even Barony, not let me go that easily," he says, looking through the grills out over the ship's bridge and bow as the vessel slices through the sea at a more leisurely pace now, heading south by southwest. "No. I will oversee what is to come. When I old, like Frelsari . . . then they let me go. But even Substance and Rökkr still Guardians."

"You seem to use English a lot here," I note.

"I switch periodically between languages," he replies. "Want to keep crew proficient among Norse, Norwegian and English — even Dragon for those who speak it. Switch to English during drill . . . for you," my son smiles.

"Father," he then says though, "I need talk with you about Tyrah. She wants family . . . I cannot deny her, or her wish, any longer. She been companion, aide, and cover to me. She even captain here when I must hide. I cannot do without her, and do not want to. She not want to either. We closer than Frelsari and Helga were. We like Substance and Amund—one in spirit, just different in species, doing great things together for our people."

"What would you like to do?" I ask.

Spring looks out through the grills at the sea beyond, unable to say anything. But I get his intent anyway.

"What's stopped or stopping you?" I ask.

"Her Outside Berk family," he replies. "They like me, but ask Tyrah when she will come back to Barony, settle down. Neither of us feel comfortable telling them how close in spirit we are."

"Is that why you two have been constantly working all these years together?" I ask. "Either with the admiral or at sea? Not taking your leaves, even with us on the island?"

"When we at work, her family cannot question us being together," he answers. "They know I need her. But when we on island, they expect her to visit them on mainland, or come visit us. They have tried to arrange marriage for her, in old way, more than once. Tyrah hates to have to choose between her family, and me. Now, with this ship, we never have to return home if we don't want to. But having kids here, even adopted human ones, would be difficult. It Berk's ship though, and Berk can do what Berk likes."

"Would you like me to do anything?" I offer. "Even have the baroness talk with Tyrah's family? The baroness is old now, but when she gets her mind made up about something, there is no one in the entire Barony who would disagree with her."

Spring pauses, still looking through the grills. "I not know what to do," he finally replies. "But Tyrah and I more than Dragon and Rider, more than companions like you and Substance are."

"Has there been a name for this in the past?" I wonder.

"No," he replies. "Companions just takes on stronger meaning. No one on island questions it, because intent is understood. But Outside Berkers—they only think dragon's role is as in Journal . . . to approve mate, not be one, which cannot happen anyway. If we just on island, if I had never left . . . this never be."

"You are two fully sentient beings," I affirm, "who care deeply for one another, and want to share a journey through life together . . . a journey that really is already well underway."

"It hurts though," he now says as I can see tears leaking from his eyes, "that I cannot be what I should for her."

"All she wants," I reply, laying a hand on my dragon son's neck, "is for you to be who you already are to her."

"Dad . . ." he smiles as he nudges me tightly.

— — — — —

This evening, we settle into our stateroom for dinner. Spring has Tyrah open the large partitions that divide our room from his ahead of us. Soon, Roana and I are relaxing in our floor bedding against Substance. Rökkr is curling himself around behind her, while Tyrah is relaxing across from us against Spring. We share simple platters of raw fish, roast mutton and boiled vegetables, which Roana, Tyrah and I brought up from the ship's galley on our own. Mess stewards are available, and even offered to help, but we Berkers don't really go for formality. Even though the walls are steel and fiberglass rather than wood, and there is no house fire in our quarters . . . with all of us gathered, relaxing together on floor bedding, it does feel like home to a degree.

"Son," I ask, looking around as we eat, "why are there gasket frames around sections of blank wall here?"

"That because they're not just blank wall," Spring replies as Tyrah clicks a remote she grabs off a small table next to her. Suddenly, the several tall, gasketed frames that stretch almost from floor to the overhead transform from seemingly solid grey into clear glass, revealing an open seascape beyond.

"It bulletproof glass with sandwich layer of liquid crystal," my dragon son explains. "Strong as surrounding steel."

"It was more expensive," Tyrah picks up, "but since we aren't supposed to be a frontline warship, I wanted us to be able to enjoy some of the views we sail through . . . and the Barony didn't say no. These windows are mounted flush on the outside so they can blend in with the surrounding metal though. We can transition them from clear, to opaque, even to one-way viewing, all with the press of a button. I didn't want the dragons, even Spring, to just have to exist inside a windowless box for days at a time when we put into Outsider ports, even with the enclosed promenade up above. We can control all of these windows from the bridge when we need to though. But this is our home after all."

"Home?" I ask, in light of my recent discussion with my dragon son.

"Home," she confirms, looking at her dragon companion as she rests against him. "Spring wants to roam the seas. Even says it's our future with both New Berk and Dragon Island getting crowded now, thanks to you, Doctor."

"A few enzymes here, some genetic therapy there," I modestly shrug.

" . . . Are forcing us to find new places to call home now," Tyrah continues. "Places we can still hide though."

"Which is why we're on this mission," I agree.

"And cruise," Roana chimes in beside me.

"But home, here?" I wonder to Tyrah and Spring. "Not even one of the new settlements, provided we're able to negotiate for them?"

"Home, here," Tyrah confirms, looking to Spring.

"You not want more?" he asks her.

"Just this, and just you," she warmly replies. "I didn't work as hard as I have redesigning and adapting this ship with both the Barony and Defence Ministry bureaucracies for just anything, you know," she finishes, giving the side of his head a nudge with her nose.

She had beaten Spring to it, making it clear that she was choosing a life with him over her family and a conventional life in the Barony.

"Our ambassadors have confirmed that the Canadian Deputy Prime Minister is ready to join us tomorrow," Tyrah then reports to the rest of us. "But they add that the talks up to this point have not exactly been going well."

"Dragons will make difference," Spring affirms, "at least know truth."

If it was going to be work on this trip, at least it would be balanced with time spent seeing the other side of our family.

— — — — —

Later with our room partition re-closed for privacy, Roana and I settle next to our dragons on floor bedding that is even more comfortable than we enjoy at home. I notice that everyone else though has at least one eye cocked towards our large stateroom windows as I relax beside Roana, sitting up against Substance while making some final notes here on the laptop.

"I could get used to this," Roana sighs as she rests her head on my shoulder, still looking out the windows, " . . . watching the sea go by through windows, instead of just unmoving wooden walls that we have at home."

"I don't think Spring will be coming home now, perhaps ever," I quietly note as I continue journaling.

"And becoming chief?" Roana guesses next to me.

"I had thought about at least nominating him to succeed me one day," I say.

"With us having to grow like this, being chief on New Berk won't be what it has been in the past," she advises. "There will have to be a network of leaders, all doing different things, all coming to agreement. Perhaps Spring will lead us upon the seas, as he basically already is."

"Networked leadership," I sigh. "I'm getting a little old for such new concepts now. Dealing with the baroness, the king and my cousin at times, is about all the networked leadership I want to deal with."

"Well, you seem to like electronic networking just fine, even a little too much," she notes. "Remember our deal?"

"But this could be a momentous development for our people," I gently defend. "Recording history in the raw, as it's happening. Not just reconstructing my memories as I have been."

"You have been doing a very good job in reconstructing your memories," my mate reminds me. "Lance, in writing our story for me, you have given me back those precious first days of us that I had lost. Meeting you, those first debates we had, me reeling you into settling and mating, our marriage night, that and the whole rest of our both wonderful and eventful first year together. You know I will always owe you for that.

"But," she continues, "we have worked hard, both on and beyond our island these past years. I am ready for a real break, especially a sea voyage here—even if we have to combine it with an important, even crucial diplomatic mission. I'll let you record momentous events the days they happen. But otherwise, would it be too much to ask to have you to myself the rest of the time? Without those fingers working . . . other than on me, perhaps?"

Closing the laptop now.

— — — — —

Day 2

After talking more with Roana last night, I've agreed to limit my laptop journaling to brief periods towards the ends of days when significant things happen, with as many "days off" in between as I can. But maintaining the present tense seems to provide a sense of presence and here-and-now immediacy that the past tense just hasn't in the rest of my story here, so I think I'll continue this way.

This morning, Spring, Tyrah, Rökkr, Substance, Roana and I all stand just inside the hangar doorway as a blue Baronial helicopter approaches. My mate and I are wearing our Outsider best—a pinstriped suit for me, and a green service dress uniform for Roana.

The atmosphere is tense but expectant as the helicopter sets down upon the Neoprene landing platform amid the gale force wash its blades create around it before they slow to a stop.

Its right side door slides open, and out steps a very polished young woman in a dark business suit and skirt, her long, strawberry blonde hair done up neatly with a slim blue barrette in back, as an older man emerges behind her.

"Ambassador . . ." I greet her warmly.

"Daddy," she smiles, shaking her head as she comes to embrace her mother and I.

Hope. Roana and I could not have picked a better name for our one daughter and human child. Like Spring, she has exceeded our fondest desires for her. Readily overcoming her premature birth, Hope seemed to be richly infused with the power and strength all our dragons were imparting to her. As she grew though, coming to accompany us on periodic journeys to the Outside and seeing what Roana and I were having to do at times to ensure our tribe's survival in negotiations with ministries and more—she came to feel that the dragons needed a strong advocate, even guardian, in the world beyond.

I had to admire her almost fierce determination to protect us and ensure we had what we needed in the world. She came to put that even ahead of the dragon friendships she had developed growing up, and the dragons all seemed to respect it, none having approached her for bonding as companion. With Rökkr and Substance never having had a child of their own, despite fertility exams and treatments Roana and I had given them both at times, the opportunity for companion bonding within our family had just never come up.

"The baroness and Outside Guardians don't understand the dragons and their needs like I do," Hope had told us though in eventually deciding to pursue an education away from us, even finishing secondary school in Oslo at an elite academy, thanks to the baroness, who took Hope in to live with her. Roana and I were surprised that our daughter would so readily move away from our island as a teen, but as Hope told Rökkr who served in the dragon's role in her formal departure ceremony, "I do this for you. I have to."

As Spring had with most all things strategy and nautical, Hope quickly found herself excelling at international studies upon entering Oslo University. Completing no less than a doctorate in that subject there, the baroness, Roana and I readily agreed Hope was a natural candidate to be Berk's first officially named ambassador, even though her mother and others had been less official tribal envoys for decades prior. Having dealt with many ticklish situations himself though, it was decided my cousin, Gunnar, would mentor her in the field as well. The now elderly king designated him as an ambassador at large without portfolio immediately upon my cousin's military retirement, obviously wanting Norway to be involved, even right alongside anything my daughter negotiated.

"Why is it always me watching over your kids?" my cousin quietly posed to me, fortunately with a smile, just ahead of his appointment ceremony at the palace in Oslo that Roana and I had flown down for.

"Because you're the respectable one between us on the Outside," I replied. "I'm just the official Viking barbarian."

"Like hell you are," he replied, glancing at the pinstriped suit and chief's crest that I customarily wore on trips to Oslo and elsewhere.

Now, dressed in a civilian pinstriped suit himself, Gunnar was ushering our guests out of the helicopter onboard our new ship as my daughter was allowed to briefly rush ahead and embrace her mother and I before duty called.

"It's been a while, Hope," I almost regretfully sigh to her as we embrace.

"We all have our roles, Daddy," she assures before turning towards our two guests, one in a grey civilian suit, and the other in a black uniform with a white hat. "May I present the right honourable Bernard DuFont, Deputy Prime Minister of Canada, and Lieutenant Commander Thomas Rogerson, United States Navy, liaison for the NATO Supreme Commander. Minister and Commander, this is my father, Doctor Lance Hyse, Chief Ýsa of Berk, his wife and co-leader, my mother, Forsvarets Sikkerhetsavdeling Brigader Roana Ýsa, their dragons and fellow tribal leaders — Substance, Guardian of Memories, and Rökkr, Great Guardian — and finally the ship's captain, Kommandørkaptein Spring Ýsa, and his first officer, Orlogskaptein Tyrah Kristiansen."

"Pleasure, Minister, Commander," I greet our guests in turn as the senior leader among us, shaking their offered hands while treating their slack-jawed expressions at finally seeing our dragons as all too normal.

"F-Forgive me," the minister quietly stammers to me, still looking towards Spring though, "but which one is the captain?"

"The dragon is," I whisper, trying to contain a smile.

— — — — —

Ushering our guests through the hangar and into the general mess space, the rest of the crew stands and comes to attention as we pass. I notice both our guests are struck by our ship's unique mixture of modern and ancient—a state of the art galley alongside lounge mattresses and platters arrayed across most of the deck, with only a few of the crew gathered at the tables around the periphery.

We ascend the ramp up to the bridge deck, turning aft and entering a large pair of staterooms on the port side this time. The partition between them has been opened. One portion is occupied by a somewhat small polished wooden table with four chairs around it, while the other is mostly covered by white canvas lounge mattresses. Two white-jacketed mess stewards stand at the ready with covered silver platters of basically cold food arranged on a sideboard.

"This will function as our meeting space and wardroom during your stay with us," Hope introduces. "Among ourselves, we Berkers break with conventional naval practice and all eat either together on the main Mess Deck, or more privately at times with our companions and compatriots in our berthing spaces or staterooms. There is little division between officers and enlisted here, as is the case in the rest of our tribe and nation.

"Minister, Commander," she then invites, "you are welcome to enjoy your lunch at the table, where one or more of us can join you. But as you came to meet our dragons, we invite you to dine as we do, with them on the mattresses, as they cannot easily eat at tables."

"I-I do not think my tailored suit would do well cross-legged on the mattresses," the Deputy Prime Minister hesitantly decides, turning towards the table, while the US Navy liaison readily sits down upon the mattresses in his own black service dress uniform. I would have preferred them the other way round if one of them felt they had to sit at the table. This does not appear to be a good omen for our negotiations with Canada. Glancing between the minister and me, Roana decides to join Gunnar and Hope with the minister around the table, while I join Spring and the others as we sit in a circle upon the floor mattresses with the lieutenant commander.

Lunch proceeds somewhere between pleasant and tense—pleasant among us on the mattresses as the liaison officer begins comparing professional notes with Spring and Tyrah, but tense over at the table behind me where I can hear Hope having to maintain almost too much of the polite conversation.

I catch Spring giving a less than friendly glance towards the minister as we eat.

_Spring,_ I mentally caution him as he looks at me and resumes eating his raw fish.

After lunch, we continue showing our guests around the ship, arriving on the bridge first, with the liaison officer admiring, "This is way too nice and spacious a bridge for a naval ship."

"We intend that way," Spring replies with pride. "I not fit in regular naval bridge."

We continue down to the Mission Space inside the ship's stern—my first visit there as well. The minister fortunately seems impressed with our KJK assault teams and at least their RHIBs, while continuing to give the dragons there a somewhat wide berth. Hope is beside him every step of the way, inviting questions and doing the best she can to positively introduce him to the best we have to offer. Spring walks beside me, continuing to cast dark glances towards the minister. Rökkr's glance towards our guest seems a little more neutral, but looking around, none of the dragons seem to regard the minister with any warmth or friendliness.

— — — — —

Dinner back in our de facto wardroom is unfortunately no better, despite Roana's invitation for everyone to change into more casual clothing, with her and I setting an example by changing back into our village attire.

This time, Substance attempts to awkwardly join the minister, Gunnar and Hope at the table. She soon spills her tray of raw fish onto the deck however, either by accident or design, compelling me to come to her aid. I then wind up feeding Substance raw fish by hand as I sit next to her on the last chair at a corner of the table between her and Hope, trying to catch bites of my own Lapskaus stew as I can.

Even this awkwardness doesn't seem to warm or relax the minister though, only irritate him.

As we part for our respective quarters after dinner, "I'm sorry, Ms. Ýsa," I overhear the minister say aside to Hope, "but so far, I'm not seeing much that Canada does not already obtain from its membership in NATO. You had said you had something to offer us in protecting our territorial interests in the Northwest Passage, especially against submarines."

"You see it," Spring interjects as he deliberately passes by them, "tomorrow." I then see him glance at the liaison officer who cautiously nods back in understanding. It looks like our Virginia-class sub escort will be put to work practically as soon as it arrives alongside us.

We then watch as the minister walks off alone further aft to his stateroom, while the liaison officer turns toward the bridge, presumably heading for our radio room.

"Could we see the rest of you for a mead tea nightcap in our quarters?" I invite everyone else.

— — — — —

Before long, a mess steward delivers a wooden keg of fresh, hot mead tea on a dolly for us along with buckets and mugs to use to our quarters, still opened with Spring and Tyrah's. But as soon as the steward closes the door behind him . . .

"I not trust minister," Spring immediately says, almost scowling as he does.

"I agggreeee," Rökkr affirms, having never worked much to further improve his English over the years.

"Maybe I need to take a more active role," I mull, "as a fellow Canadian. But guys," I then ask, "where else can we go? There are few areas in the world with relatively unpopulated coastlines and island archipelagos where we could establish new hidden dragon settlements. Canada and Russia offer by far the best options, but as we all know, we cannot ask Russia. Should we turn south, and try to perhaps deal with Argentina or Chile, or one of the remote islands surrounding Antarctica?"

"Minister tougher than Melanie to deal with," Substance now chimes in. "Cannot detect hesitancy or other weakness within him. He wants clear advantage for Canada, feeling we need them far more than they need us."

"Any advantage for us or Norway?" I ask, turning to Hope and Gunnar now.

"Nothing that as a fellow Arctic, energy and industrial power they cannot get or trade for on their own," Gunnar sighs. "We could wait for their government to change at the next election."

"But the civil service the deputy prime minister is a part of remains the same, regardless of which party is in government," I reply. "A good number of my countrymen regard the permanent civil service as a stabilizing influence among our sometimes contentious parties and politics. It is occasionally said that a minister, even the prime minister, is managed, even run, by their deputy."

"It's why we've had Outside Berkers in the Norwegian Fisheries and Defence ministerial staffs," Roana agrees, " . . . to bargain honestly," she quickly qualifies to Gunnar.

"I've been part of that," he quips though, "at a very high and obvious level, thanks to the king."

"Maybe dragons should start practicing birth control," Substance now suggests. "You could devise that, Lannce. Even begin practicing selective breeding, to improve our kind, and control our numbers to what our two islands could sustain. My kind would agree to that, it logical."

"Let's turn in," I sigh, not willing to agree to such a seemingly draconian alternative yet.

As I type this day's events on my laptop, sitting up in our bedding against a dozing Substance, Roana has already turned and gone to sleep, her bare back once more against my side. I find myself praying, even though a solution feels increasingly remote, almost seeming beyond reach at this point.

Roana was right. This was supposed to be an easy and care-free pleasure cruise on a new ship for us.

But it's feeling a long way from that at the moment here.

I sigh as I feel a hand reaching to warmly caress the side of my left leg.

It thankfully brings a smile to my face as I finish this for now. Curling up with Roana in our bedding, even after over thirty years of marriage and mated bliss . . . there is nothing that makes me feel better.

It's worth closing the laptop for. Definitely.


	50. Chapter 50

_Author's Note_

_My thanks to Tagesh for some mental food for thought in his review of the previous chapter that has provided some inspiration for this one._

_As always, your reviews are appreciated, and do make a difference._

— _Norwesterner_

* * *

><p>Day 4<p>

"Bardaga stötvar! Battle alert!" we're awakened to in English this time as well, along with the electronic alarm and flashing red lights, even inside our quarters. I don't have to guess what it's for though as Roana and I rapidly rise and dress in our village clothing. Looking out our large vertical windows, it's right around dawn.

Even though our Virginia-class sub escort covertly joined us yesterday as we left the Norwegian coast behind, heading out across the Atlantic at a leisurely eighteen knots on diesels—it was a day of at times intensive negotiations on a scrambled channel with NATO's Supreme Commander, General Collins. Tom the NATO liaison officer, Gunnar representing Norway, Spring and myself were all crowding into the radio room or 'shack' as it's sometimes nicknamed. The general was initially reluctant to clear Deputy Prime Minister DuFont on Spring's new skill, which other dragons would learn, but compromise was reached. DuFont, as the senior-most permanent member of Canada's civil service would be informed, even given a full demonstration. But the Canadian Prime Minister, whose success in an upcoming election was now uncertain, would simply be told the Norwegians and Americans are developing a new submarine detection method that is not ready for broader disclosure among NATO members yet. Berk, basically through Norway, would be willing to use it in helping the Canadians to maintain and protect their territorial claims on the Northwest Passage as a domestic shipping route, via joint patrols using one or more Berk ships—provided the Berk dragons were given a settlement on a mutually-agreed upon and nicely isolated island along British Columbia's remote Pacific coastline, which was very much like the Norwegian coast we were already familiar with and acclimated to.

Berk and the Barony were going to be on the hook for this deal though, as we might need a whole fleet of Drekar-class ships and partial dragon crews to fulfil any ASW or Anti-Submarine Warfare protection commitments to Canada. At least the arrangement would provide more places for dragons to live and work however, even if they were ships at sea.

But we had our bargaining chip . . . and Roana had given me a very thorough massage as we went to bed last night.

Now with the wake-up battle alert, Roana, Rökkr, Substance and I are soon emerging onto the bridge among Gunnar, Hope and Tom. Spring and Tyrah are at their usual stations at the front of the space.

But the minister is not here.

"I'll go get DuFont," I sigh to Roana.

"No, I will," she quietly counters, so as not to disturb the concentration on the bridge. "I combine both authority, and feminine wiles, which he seems partial to."

Even though just into her sixties now, Roana is as fit and attractive as ever. Unwilling to colour or dye like an Outsider, she's nonetheless made even the grey streaks in her loosely braided hair look good. I just give her a nod, along with a subtle smile, as she turns back, exiting the bridge.

"Dad," my strawberry blonde daughter, Hope now whispers to me, coming beside me as Spring orders a course change in front of us, "I wish you'd included me in the radio negotiations yesterday. I've been working on DuFont for weeks off and on, even over in Ottawa."

"There was no room in the Radio Shack," I quietly reply. "And remember, you're Berk's ambassador. I'm its head. Your brother had to be in there as it's his skill we're dealing over. Besides, I should be the one taking any heat from the baroness or Barony over this proposed deal, not you."

"Dad . . ." she now says more warmly, further signalling her agreement with me through a kiss on my cheek as she takes my arm while I lay my right hand on hers.

Roana soon re-emerges onto the bridge though with a somewhat rumpled-looking DuFont in tow—his shirt only partly tucked in, and his receding brown hair with grey streaks only half-combed.

"I'm told I should be seeing something here," he notes as Roana unobtrusively rolls her eyes towards me.

"Minister," I quietly say, moving over beside him, "what you are about to see is a new, and an extremely classified development among Berk, Norway and the United States. We have secured agreement from the NATO Supreme Commander for you to see it and be told of it, but unfortunately it has been decided that your Prime Minister cannot be informed in full, at least until the upcoming election is decided."

"It is not the only secret I keep from him," DuFont almost whispers.

"He can be told it is a new submarine detection method," I continue, "but nothing more for now. You will be able to attest to its voracity though."

"What are those dragons doing out there?" he asks, seeing the two KJK Night Furies flying in their customary stations off our bow on either side.

"You'll see," I assured.

"Continue zigzag pattern," Spring quietly orders. "Two One Zero this time."

"Helm, come left to course Two One Zero," Tyrah then more loudly directs next to him.

"Coming left to Two One Zero," the helmsman replies as he turns the wheel.

"Since you can tell me, just what is the nature of this method or technology you've devised?" DuFont quietly asks me.

"The captain himself," I reply. "Dragons can read minds and sense where living beings are in the space around them. Spring is already hearing every order the submarine commander is giving, and is able to precisely locate the sub through the thoughts, even the living essences of both the commander and crew by bearing, depth and distance, as readily as a radio direction finder could, even better."

"Steady on Two One Zero," the helm interjects.

"You mean psychically?" DuFont queries.

"No, it's mental detection," I clarify. "Dragons can sense the energies of thoughts and life forms to varying degrees, far better than humans can. It's a natural ability they have always had, but never applied in this way until now."

"I don't believe in such phenomena," the minister dismisses.

"You'll see . . . in just a moment," I assure.

"Right to Two Seven Zero," Spring orders. "Accelerate to thirty-five knots."

"Right to Two Seven Zero," the helmsman replies.

"Accelerating to thirty-five knots," the X.O. confirms as well as she moves two bridge engine throttles forward.

"Sonar, stand by single pulse," the captain then directs. "Bearing Two Nine Zero, fifty degrees down angle."

"Sonar ready," the reply comes from the darkened alcove off the bridge.

"Sound ping. Sonar on speakers please," Spring rapidly orders.

Once again, there is that clear _bong_ from our own ship. "That's our sonar," I explain to DuFont as we briefly wait before a softer metallic thump soon echoes back. "That's the submarine, being targeted or 'lit up' by our sonar as they say."

"No sweeps or searching?" the minister quietly asks me.

"No need," I assure. "But that one ping will frighten most any sub skipper right into practically surrendering, or at least surfacing, because just a single ping aimed right at him tells him that we already know right where he is. Russian or most any other submarines will give the Northwest Passage a wide berth once NATO exposes them like this more than once. You could even require they transit the passage surfaced, flying the Canadian flag as a courtesy."

I could see a subtle smile now emerging on the minister's face.

"Conn, Sonar. Launches! Two of them!" the alcove next to us reports. "One rapidly coming shallow, bearing Two Nine Zero, the other a high-speed screw arcing around towards us. Torpedo!"

"Starboard intercept torpedo, fire!" Spring rapidly orders, while simultaneously giving a glance to the Night Fury off our starboard bow as well who snaps off to the right, as Spring then swings his head, glancing at the other Night Fury to the left. That other Night Fury and Rider now bank and swoop to the right across our bow, dropping low over the water off our starboard side where our torpedo has just been fired.

Both Furies fire powerful blasts off our starboard side, aiming in somewhat different directions. The blast ahead of us hits a missile as it just breaks the surface this time, exploding in a ball of fire with a powerful boom. The blast from the other Fury off our starboard side penetrates into the water, its outer edges able to briefly force the waters apart, protecting the fiery plasma core like a jacketed bullet. Almost instantly, twin, even triple explosions erupt to the surface further towards our stern, sending spray flying as we swiftly leave them behind.

"Conn, Sonar. Both small targets destroyed," the alcove now reports. "Main target coming alongside and shallow off our starboard bow."

"Valkyrie, Valkyrie, this is Roving Guardian," the bridge radio speaker now crackles. "Confirm targeting and both intercepts. Well done . . . But did you have to destroy our practice torpedo? It could have been recovered, over."

"No one dents my ship, even with practice torpedo," Spring quietly says, before more loudly directing, "VOX, please."

"You're on, Captain," Tyrah cues, trying to stifle her amusement.

"Apologies, Captain," Spring now replies, glancing at the black periscope and radio masts now rising from the water at speed off our starboard bow. "New ship. Would like to keep her that way, over."

"Understood, Captain, over," the other skipper almost chuckles.

"Next time, we dive and pick it out of water, okay? Over," Spring replies, now subtly smiling himself.

"Your teams can do that? Over," the almost amazed reply comes over the radio.

"Just watch," Spring calmly assures. "Bet ten cases of your finest salmon against five kegs of our mead."

"Make it while we're in Halifax and cut it to five cases and two kegs, and you're on, Captain," the sub skipper readily accepts. "Regs say we have to be a dry boat at sea, and that's one line I'd rather not cross. Over."

"Understood, Captain," Spring agrees. "Feast in Halifax to settle up, no matter what. We host. Resume normal operations, speed eighteen knots, and great circle course for Halifax. Valkyrie out."

"Thank you, Captain. My crew will definitely be there. Roving Guardian out," comes the reply as the X.O. switches the VOX off once more and the periscope and mast re-submerge off our starboard side.

I'm admittedly curious as to how Spring will pull off such a party while dragons aren't supposed to be seen on deck in port, but I choose not to ask.

I then turn towards the minister though, still seeing a smile upon his face.

I think we've made a friend . . . as well as a whole boatload more on the sub.

— — — — —

Day 5

The rest of yesterday, after a more relaxed lunch and even a session of journaling for me, I encouraged everyone to just take the afternoon and evening off—aside from Spring, Tyrah and the crew around us of course—especially as we got word that a carrier out in the Atlantic would be sending a helo to rendezvous with us the next morning, conveying the Commander, Naval Surface Forces, United States Atlantic Fleet or ComNavSurfLant, and his team. With a three-star vice admiral and his aides coming aboard, gone would be our wardroom and conference space as it would be converted back into quarters. But we didn't have much more to formally discuss with the minister anyway at the moment. He knew what we wanted, and now what we were offering. I wanted DuFont to mull over all he had seen, even feel free to wander the Drekar and encounter our dragons and humans on his own.

Besides, I felt I had just one night to give Roana any sort of romance at sea before the admiral and his aides would likely consume our full attention, probably all the rest of the way to Halifax. So, I encouraged Rökkr and Substance to fly off and have some fun in the air on their own. Being practical, Rökkr accepted, saying it would be a fish run to help maintain shipboard stocks. But I knew they would still have some fun. Taking a note from the Journal about 'date nights', Rökkr had been taking Substance on flights alone for years now, with her tapping into him for guidance in the air as readily as with any of the rest of us.

Quietly asking Hope to keep her mother occupied elsewhere with a daughter-mother talk about something, anything, for a little while; I eventually welcomed Roana into our quarters, now lit with just candles, the mattresses and bedding right up against, even almost underneath, the angled windows this time . . . making sure they were in two-way mirror mode, although there was no one outside to see.

"Where's the laptop?" she smiled.

"Put away for tonight . . . _all_ night," I promised, as I proceeded to unveil a platter of steaming broiled Reindyrstek, or Reindeer fillet, along with vegetables. It was a favourite of Roana's, and I had gotten over my 'Rudolph' hang-up. Roana suggested we say a prayer of thanks to the reindeer anyway though. And the stuff did taste good.

We sat up in our white bedding against the rear bulkhead, right next to a pair of windows that allowed us to just relax and gaze out upon the twilight ocean as we fed each other forkfuls of our dinner.

"You ever regret we didn't have a second kid?" my mate asked me at one point as we finish our meal and just settle in close against one another, still looking out those tall windows beside us.

"We've had two kids," I replied, embracing Roana and warmly rubbing her back, "a son and a daughter I could not be more proud of, or love more."

Roana kissed my neck before nuzzling and holding me even tighter.

"When Marta had you checked out on the Outside, and you were determined to be at risk for more premature births," I continued, "you know I supported your choice in having your tubes tied, one hundred percent."

"You don't mind not having the family line continued, formally anyway?" she queried.

"My cousin can continue the formal family line," I assured, "through Jorge. Jorge's already had two boys, and their family has been at least vacationing on island for years now. Things are getting so blended among Dragon and Outside Berkers coming and going," I then sighed, " . . . it's getting confusing."

"Our tribe is being reunified," she soothed, rubbing my chest. "I thought that's what you wanted."

"It is," I sighed. "But thousands on the Outside wanting access to the sixty resident slots and twenty visitor slots we have on the island, plus ten for our Johannsen Hospice and Nursing House, with some of our sixty wanting to routinely come and go—even the dragons rotating between New Berk and Dragon Island . . . I need an admin staff around me as chief now."

"Well, we're at least getting a vacation," she sighed, resting against my shoulder. "Besides, that's what the Barony is for. Lean on them more for admin help."

"But you've done so much as Dragon Healer," I soothe now in appreciation as well, "that being any more a stellar mother as well than you already have would be too much. Saving and healing dragons had to come first in this lifetime for us."

"There are times I wonder how I found you," she sniffed against me.

"I've told you that," I warmly replied as I ease us both down flat in our bedding, " . . . in writing no less now."

Roana's melancholy turned to gentle laughter as kissing took over between us.

For that one night, it was the best cruise, and cruise ship, we could ask for.

— — — — —

This morning though, it's back to best Outsider dress, with Roana in her service dress uniform and me in my pinstripe suit and collar of office. A light grey U.S. Navy helicopter is now landing in front of us on the Drekar's aft platform, directed by the waiving wands of our aircraft marshaller—who is normally assigned to other duties, as our dragons would just laugh at such wand-waving for the most part. An honour guard of our ship's crew, both dragon and human, snaps to attention as the helicopter's side door is opened, and the vice admiral steps out, returning salutes. Wearing a Summer White Service uniform under a black zippered jacket with 'TANNER' in white lettering on its right side, the vice admiral has something of a paunch, and with the weathered face under his white hat, he clearly seems near retirement.

With his team of aides trailing behind him—and there are more of those than we'd been told, five in all—the vice admiral steps up before us. He returns the salutes of Roana, Spring and the assembled ship's officers, fortunately seeming to recognize the protocol we've established with dragons nodding deeply as their form of military salute, while simultaneously saluting me as a head of state, which I then return with my own salute. It's a multi-layered form of kabuki theatre and ritual that Roana and I have come to accept in dealing with flag officers of the various militaries we work with, but one we still prefer to dispense with as quickly as possible.

I notice that while he makes eye contact with Roana, Tyrah and the other assembled human officers, the vice admiral never once looks Spring or our few other senior dragons present in the eye.

"Admiral," I greet to him as head of our delegation, extending my hand, "welcome aboard the Berk ship Drekar."

"A pleasure . . . Chief," he says, seeming to fumble with my title a bit as we shake hands, probably used to the term designating subordinate naval chief petty officers rather than tribal heads of state. "If we may," he then says, "I'd like to get down to business, and evaluate this new method of yours for myself."

"It's not mine, Admiral," I gently advise, "but the captain's . . . and his prerogative. I'm no more in charge onboard this flagship than you are onboard yours."

"Of course . . ." he accepts with an almost clear reservation, even discomfort.

I'll say it at this point in my narrative . . . dragon racism, or more properly, speciesism, even genusism. The idea that dragons shouldn't be where they are among humankind, have the responsibility, even authority they've assumed among us—that a different form of life cannot be our equals. Even I fell victim to this human bias when I first arrived at New Berk, with me continuing to make Freudian slip-ups over it for a number of years afterward, with Roana, and sometimes Substance calling me on it each time.

For me, it led into a personal exploration through reading and discussion of most every form of prejudice and discrimination throughout human history. Substance, Roana, and even Rökkr were only too happy to explore it with me, right from the earliest intertribal conflicts in pre-history where one people viewed another as inferior, forward through conquest, domination, enslavement, discrimination, and something that was all too close to New Berk in World War II . . . extraction and extermination.

"It lead to death, not life," Substance summed up during one winter family discussion we'd shared around the fire in our home as Hope was growing up. Spring was still with us as well. He was already thinking towards an education and career on the Outside though, despite the daunting logistical obstacles he faced having to remain hidden—not to mention the prospect of having to prove his intelligence and capabilities over and over again, even just to a clandestine Outside world, one that had not been working with dragons as equals for a thousand years like we had on the island.

"What do I do about it?" I asked though that night. "Within me? I have sinned on this, perhaps as much as anyone. Growing up in Manitoba, I found myself uncomfortable around Native peoples, even though I learned in history classes that it was their land first that I was in. I didn't relate well with ethnic Africans, East Indians, or with Latinos when I was living in Texas. I bought into the biases of my own kind, my own Caucasian race . . . even though I was looking for other forms of life, even intelligent life, beyond Earth. Go figure."

Roana hugged me as we all sat around our fire, as I looked down in regret, even shame.

"Look at me," Substance then said. "See me as a fellow brain, Doctor. See me as kindred spirit, another mass of life energy. Our bodies are different, our awarenesses are a little different. But our life energies . . . those are the same. I am life, I am intelligence, and so are you. See and embrace love as the common energy between us, the thing that binds us together."

"What do I do with that?" I asked. "There are others like I was, out there. I just went along for the most part, accepted what was normal among my kind."

"Your true kind is all," Substance told me. "Your true kind is life itself. You and every other form of life here on Earth comes from same origins. You and every other form of life out among the stars, comes from same dust, same elements, same energy. Divisions and distinctions . . . those are something you learn, something you adopt. Leaf does not condemn root as inferior, even though each is different. They have different abilities, but each contributes to same whole, to plant or tree they are part of."

"What do I do with it all though?" I repeated with an almost resigned sigh.

"Use it," Substance replied. "Use what you have experienced, what you have learned and realized, even mistakes you have made. Use them to make things better, for all of us—to help make things the way they should be, until you find peace . . ."

As the best dragon companions do in Berk, Substance changed my life with her thoughts, her words to me.

I came to realize that I had come to where I was in life with all the tools I needed . . . my past and my experiences, both good and bad, as well as the resources, even the position I had now. All I had to do to make amends, even with myself, was use them.

"Admiral," I now say on the landing platform of the Drekar, "let's talk first, you and I."

I am the only person on the ship who could say that to him.

Leaving the rest of his team behind with Roana, with my giving just a nod to her to intercept and host them, I proceed to lead the vice admiral into our ship through the hangar.

"This is our mess space," I introduced in passing as we step into it while the vice admiral instinctively removes his hat. "We have no ward room onboard, so we will be eating here tonight with the crew. But for now, let's have brunch up in my quarters. Mannskapps," I call in Bokmål, addressing one of the crew behind the galley's stainless steel serving counter, given the majority of our crew is Outside Berker who are more used to Norwegian than to our island Norse. "Kunne vi ha to smørbrød vennligst? Jeg vil ha skinke, Jarlsberg, løk og tomat, og en mjød te. Admiral," I then say, turning to him, "our mess crew can make up quick open-faced Norwegian sandwiches or smørbrød between normal meals. I've ordered ham with Jarlsberg cheese, onion and tomato, my usual. What would you like?"

"T-The same would be fine . . ." he replies, clearly caught off-guard amid all this informality he had little choice but to go along with now.

"Coffee, mead tea, or a juice?" I then offer him.

"Coffee," he decides, "with cream and two sugars."

"Got it, sirs," the crewman behind the counter assures in a Norwegian-accented English with a smile to both of us.

While the vice admiral almost takes off, thinking mess stewards would deliver our sandwiches, I have us wait at the galley's serving counter while the items are prepared. Then having each of us pick up napkins and cutlery, to his continued surprise, I invite him to carry his own tray as I was mine, up the ramp to the Bridge Deck and into my quarters, which Roana and I had tidied up for the day ourselves.

This was almost fun now.

"Sorry for the lack of furniture, Admiral," I excuse as we enter, just bumping the door with my knee as it opens easily for us, "but it just gets in the dragons' way. I'm sure you've been to Japan before though, and are used to sitting on floor cushions. We just use mattresses instead."

"O-Of course . . ." he continues to stammer slightly, while I close the door again with just my elbow. Cabin doors on the Drekar are made to swing both ways on springs, being snapped shut with just a spring-loaded ball bearing in a doorway groove, unless locked, so dragons can easily push them open and close them.

"By the way," I add, "I'm Lance. And you are . . . ?"

"Robert," he says uncomfortably.

"I know a Bob who's just retired from CIA Langley," I note, "after many periodic exchange assignments with us on New Berk. Has a clearance higher than yours. Mind if I call you Bob?"

"My name has always been Robert, sir," the vice admiral now coolly responds.

"Very well," I accept.

"I did come here to evaluate your new ASW capabilities," he reminds me as we both sit down, now balancing our trays on our laps while laying our beverages aside on a small, low side table set against the bulkhead in a corner amid the mattresses, "and I do have both a team waiting, along with a second sub in the area to participate in exercises. Your captain is not to know that in advance, however."

He probably already does though, I surmise.

"And I have a method you want, Robert," I respond though with equal directness. "And my price is you recognizing that Kommandørkaptein Spring Ýsa has both earned his rank, and command of this ship."

The admiral looks down, saying nothing.

"You should also know that he is my adopted son," I continue. "Has been for some thirty years now. I adopted him orphaned as a young teenager in the aftermath of the battle we fought against Soviet commandos."

That seems to give him pause. "Sir . . ." he then finally hesitates.

"Lance," I swiftly correct, wanting no pretense in the way.

"Alright," he accepts. "In America, we have been working with dolphins and other cetaceans as well as pinnipeds in the Navy. They're intelligent, and very capable in their assignments of mine hunting, force protection and object retrieval. They perform missions as dangerous as any SEAL team member might at times. But we don't give them ranks, and certainly not command over people."

"That's because you haven't yet established an adequate means of two-way intelligent communication with dolphins or cetaceans," I counter, sitting down but not having touched my sandwich or mead tea so far. "But that hasn't stopped police dogs from being given ranks and badges. They're even accorded full honours when they pass in the line of duty. Perhaps that's something you should fix, Admiral."

"Well we have awarded commendations, even decorations, to some cetaceans," he replies with more than a little irritation. "But you know, I could bring this whole thing to a halt, right now."

"Those aren't your instructions," I answer. "I established those with the NATO Supreme Commander, myself. Look," I sigh, "what happens when we meet intelligent extraterrestrial life?"

"I have no idea," he replies, finally cutting into and taking a bite of his sandwich. "Not my department."

"As part of the defence of the NATO Alliance, let alone the United States," I answer, "it is. You and I have lived through and remember at least the latter part of the civil rights era in America. Minorities have been integrated into the American military, with the military even leading the way in putting minorities in positions of responsibility and authority.

"Some could dismiss this as tribal mysticism or whatever," I continue, "but to us of Berk, dragons have been our equals for a thousand years. We humans initially sought to protect them from extinction. But they turned around and helped us to survive on a small remote island, and to maintain our freedom from conquest by outside forces far larger than ours. We learned to understand one another's languages, to rely on one another, and to not let anything get in the way of surviving, and now prospering together.

"This is our future, Robert," I state. "It is humanity's future. You can either deny it, turn away from it, as Norse King Olaf, two of them actually, did with us a thousand years ago . . . or you can accept and work with it, according the dragon half of my tribe and nation the same respect as you're according me right now in even having followed me here, carrying your own tray and sitting down on floor mattresses, instead of being waited on as you're used to by mess stewards in a ward room."

That at least caused him to crack a smile.

"Your orders are to evaluate our method of detecting and targeting submarines," I note. "And part of understanding any new method or technology is understanding the people behind it. If you accept our method as valid, you will have no choice but to trust, even follow the judgments of the dragons employing it. You won't have time to question their orders, or do anything but what they say—otherwise the missile will be launched, or the torpedo will strike.

"Don't just do your exercises, your evaluations and go," I encourage, even urge. "Send that helicopter back. Stay with us, all the way to Halifax. You are being granted access, rare and very privileged access, to not just a method . . . but to beings, even a mindset, a way of life, that will change the world someday. We have known not just survival, but peace in Berk . . . peace for a thousand years among us. Isn't that worth evaluating, too? And isn't it worth according the person—and I do mean person, even though he's not human—the professional respect he's earned, given the talents and skills he is giving you?"

A multi-toned electronic door chime now sounded in my quarters. It was determined to be easier for dragons to touch chime pads outside each cabin door with their snouts than to try knocking, likely knocking the doors open prematurely in the process.

"Come," I more loudly invite, inwardly smiling, knowing my silent mind call had worked as usual.

"Captain," I greet as Spring pushes the door open, entering alone on four legs wearing his epaulets, closing the door with his tail behind him.

Spring and the vice admiral then just eye one another for a moment.

"You should also know dragons can easily sense our thoughts," I add, "except they have difficulty reading past anger or strong negative emotions, although they can readily identify those."

"I not read you now though, sir," Spring answers, "out of respect. Dragons tune into others' thoughts as needed, or desired."

"I don't know what to think . . . Kommandørkaptein, is it?" the vice admiral sighs.

"Yes, sir," Spring answers.

"Your . . . father," the admiral says, pausing, likely grappling with that difficult concept as well, "he's a powerful advocate."

"He is my father," Spring replies with pride, glancing at me.

"You comfortable?" the vice admiral then asks him. "Being in command?"

"I nervous," Spring replies, "leading whole ship. First such command for me. But have led patrol and assault teams, stood bridge watches—on bridges where I could go—as well as overseeing design team on this ship."

"You oversaw the design team?" the admiral wonders.

"Along with human partner. Had to make sure dragons fit where needed," Spring quips. "Got stuck in mock-ups and module assemblies myself, more than once. Even fractured right wing one time, while trying to back out."

We all chuckle at least a little now, with the admiral seeming surprised at Spring's deep laugh.

"I am person though, sir," Spring says directly. "Officer in Norwegian and Berk Navy, as my father say."

"We're family," I excuse. "I have no secrets from him anyway. He's probably mind-reading me twenty-four/seven."

"More like sixteen," my son says. "Even I sleep."

"For a First Contact though, Robert," I note, "you're doing pretty good."

"First Contact? Me?" he wonders.

"For all intents and purposes," I reply, "I might as well be introducing you to a Martian or Alpha-Centaurian as commander of this ship. It would be simply mind-bending to most folks, which is why his existence, even that of all dragons, is still highly classified. I wish it weren't so—that it didn't have to be that way.

"But part of your evaluation," I continue, "is to figure out how dragon commanders and ASW warfare officers can be accepted in among the joint NATO task forces that will be relying on their abilities, and judgments, in fulfilment of their missions. Or whether dragons should be revealed among our forces at all. Because if the captain of another destroyer or frigate doesn't comply with a dragon leading the force in pursuit of a submarine, or worse, shoots at one of our dragon guardians in the air, even by mistake . . . everything we do here could be for naught."

"You can really find submarines?" the vice admiral wonders to Spring.

"USS Hawaii, our escort, parallel course, bearing Three One Zero, range about one mile, depth five hundred feet," Spring replies. "USS Texas on intercept approach, bearing Two Six Zero, closing at about thirty miles, depth two hundred feet. Skipper has orders to engage us upon signal from your carrier, which is awaiting signal from you via our secure radio."

"Where did you get that from?" the vice admiral queries.

"From Texas' skipper, sir," Spring answers. "Just now. Could sense his focus on us, read rest easily. There is also Russian sub, the Gepard, Akula Three class, south off Iceland on routine monitoring patrol, range one hundred fifty miles, bearing Three Three Zero . . . depth one hundred metres," he says slowly, his eyes briefly closed, probing. "They unaware of us or our exercise. Recommend shifting future exercises after this first one to southwest by several hundred miles to avoid encountering them, or arousing their interest."

"If you were a midshipman, Captain," the vice admiral says, "I'd have you investigated for cheating."

"You welcome to now, sir," Spring invites, stiffening to attention. "You must trust me, and us, if this is to work."

"You realize, Captain, that if this method of yours was adopted," the admiral continues, "the Russians, even the Chinese would want dragons as well, to counter us and equalize the playing field once again. Or they might even want to eliminate you and your kind as threats altogether. All this might put you in even greater danger than your father once was . . . and I have read your dossier, by the way, Doctor," he adds, glancing towards me.

"But what if my recommendation was to shut this whole effort down, before it was tested any further?" he then posed. "As too great a risk to the status quo and threat balance?"

"I would resign my commission," Spring replies, looking straight ahead at a nearby bulkhead, "and recommend this ship be either used for domestic patrols within Norwegian waters, or sold or scrapped."

"And before that, the nation of Berk would present a protest with Norway to NATO," I warned.

"But you two can see what I'm talking about," the vice admiral continues. "This is a step up from even our most sophisticated surveillance satellites, a real game-changer . . . one that might not be worth us changing the game for."

"General Collins did want this method used sparingly," I note. "To keep the Russians in the dark as much as possible. But this is also our bargaining chip, Admiral, towards gaining additional islands for accommodation of our reviving dragon populations."

"I see . . ." he muses.

"Norway has no suitable unpopulated islands left or available," I continue, "while Canada does. For its part, Canada wants to assert its claims and control over the Northwest Passage, including submarine use, having minimal A.S.W. capabilities of their own. We are working towards a deal with them."

"So I could screw that up," he concludes.

"You could, yes," I concede, reluctantly revealing a weak spot. "But we would contest any such assessment that could interfere in concluding an arrangement with the Canadians."

"I appreciate your frankness, Doctor," the admiral admits. "But I am cancelling further exercises at this point after hearing what I just have. I have also seen tapes of the U.S. satellite surveillance of the four intercepts you've conducted already, Captain, including your three proving runs off the Norwegian coast, and am presuming the Russians and Chinese have each perhaps seen at least one of them with their satellites. I for one, don't want them seeing any more. I'm sure you can both appreciate that."

"We can," I agree as Spring nods as well.

"My recommendation will be that this method is extremely effective, almost too much so," the admiral continued, "and that our world is no more ready for it, than it is for you, Captain. I will recommend that the Norwegians provide conventional ASW protection to Canada if they so desire, but that Berk be dissuaded from doing so. I am doing this as much for your interests as I am for ours. I will be recommending that this method be held in abeyance for use in a major conflict, but otherwise kept ultra classified. I will of course forward this request to NATO, but I am requesting that you not hunt submarines anymore . . . at all. Understood, Captain?"

"Yes, sir," Spring slowly says, looking down.

"My thanks to you both for lunch," the admiral concludes, rising to his feet again, picking up his hat, "but I believe I can get back to Virginia, even in time for the anniversary weekend in the Appalachians I was promising my wife before I was ordered out here."

"You don't want to further explore a world, talk with beings almost no one else is granted access to?" I wondered, rising to my feet as well.

"I don't see what point there would be," he simply shrugged. "I'm doubting that our two worlds should be meeting as it is. Mine is fleet operations, and the safety and security of the United States—not cultural or extraterrestrial or even terrestrial sentient encounters. Civil rights is a battle politicians fight. I will work with whomever I'm ordered to, but I'm not inclined to take on any more fights myself. I'm about to retire from this post, and am ready to take up a country club life, preferably in a world I still know.

"So," he sighs, "if you'll excuse me, I'll find my own way forward to your bridge and radio room, waive off the Texas, and then head for my helicopter. Please call down and see that it's refuelled and ready for departure. I'll recommend letting you keep the Hawaii as an escort until you either reach Halifax, or perhaps turn around and head for home. Thank you, Chief . . . and Captain," he says, once again with reservation.

The admiral then briefly shakes my hand, merely nods at Spring and then heads for the door, closing it behind him.

I drop to my knees as I take Spring's large head into my embrace. He is crushed, beyond hurt as his eyes close tightly.

"I'm sorry . . ." I almost whisper to him.

"No, I am," he breathes. "Sorry to think dragons could ever accomplish something on Outside. To them, to what they value, we still as threatening as ever. Let's go home, as he say."

"No," I sniff, shaking my head. "We're still on a mission, to Halifax, and then to British Columbia."

"With what?" Spring asks. "We have nothing to offer now. My kind not wanted anywhere but Norway. Only cause problems! We always be outcast!"

"The most traumatic, painful thing a cell ever does," I tell him, "is to grow and divide. Our tribe has been doing the growing part, Spring. Now, we need to divide, to settle elsewhere as well. Our people are counting on you and I to pave the way for them. I am right here with you. Hell, I'm even shedding tears with you," I sniff, looking up at the ceiling. "But we, you and I, can not stop. We go to Halifax, and then on to British Columbia and at least scout out a few islands. Heck, the Barony could probably just buy one outright if we wanted them to—probably for less than a fleet of these ships that would be needed to fulfill any A.S.W. commitments to Canada anyway."

"Dad . . ." Spring sniffs, "you are my father, in every sense of word. I only wish I could be human for you . . . carry on family line."

"I am so proud you're a dragon, Spring . . ." I whisper intensely.

Neither of us can control our tears.

— — — — —

Spring and I regain control of ourselves though, briefly sharing my sandwich, and make it back down to the landing platform, fortunately ahead of the vice admiral, as I bus the empty lunch trays back to the galley. Also fortunately, our crew has already refuelled the helicopter, even washing it down, cleaning it of accumulated grime and salt spray.

Catching Roana in the mess area and quietly informing her of what has transpired, I see she has been doing her usual yeoman job of hosting the admiral's staff. She in turn suggests they finish lunch as their boss will be ready to depart soon. I even see a couple of them carrying our KJK dragon unit patches and small Berker flags they've either picked up through exchanges with our crew, or bought from our ship's store or 'slop chest', just forward of the mess area, run by our galley crew as well.

Soon, we're all waiting out on the Drekar's landing platform next to the helicopter.

"I would love an exchange tour of duty aboard this vessel, M'am," I overhear one eager young lieutenant marvel to Roana as we wait. "Especially since the vice admiral's about to retire," he quietly adds. This lieutenant has close-cropped black hair, is about Roana's one hundred, sixty-eight centimetres or five foot, six inches in height, but seems to be of an ethnicity I can't quite make out.

"I have your contact information, Lieutenant," Roana smiles, "so I will put in an invitation, even request for you, through the proper channels."

I now spot the vice admiral coming towards us through the mess area. "Oppmerksomhet på dekk!" I now call out in Bokmål, saving anyone else, especially Spring, the trouble.

The vice admiral now strides out through the hangar as our honour guard stands at attention.

"Sorry if I kept anyone," the admiral then apologises to my surprise. "But my cancellation of exercises triggered a forwarded call with General Collins, who apparently wanted to closely follow those exercises. It seems that Norway has already expressed its own strong desire that Berk successfully conclude negotiations with Canada, and has called upon NATO to lend any assistance, with the general having to field a call to that effect from no less than the Norwegian king.

"However," he then continues, looking at both Spring and myself, "my recommendation has been both accepted, but also overruled. General Collins concurs with my recommendation that no further A.S.W. exercises be carried out with your method. At the same time though, he directs that at least one liaison remain aboard with you to evaluate the other capabilities . . . of your dragons," he says with some discomfort, "as the general has been hearing very good things from your Coast Ranger Command, and the Norwegian Defence Ministry.

"So, I have been directed to congratulate you, Captain," the vice admiral concludes, looking at Spring alone, "on a successful series of tests, and on a successful evaluation. The general is even recommending to the Norwegian Defence Ministry that the Drekar be awarded her first unit commendation."

Our crew around us couldn't help but break out in a cheer, as Spring lowers his head in salute to the vice admiral, closing his eyes though for an entirely different reason. I just place my hand in quiet congratulations on my dragon son's neck.

"I feel like I'm coming to be on perhaps the wrong side of history," the vice admiral then quietly concedes to Spring and I. "But it is history I am ready to retire to now."

"We feel like we just came from history," I reply, "to claim our equal place in the modern world," I add, glancing at my dragon son.

"Peace, not advantage in war, is what my kind, my people, believe in," Spring now notes for himself. "If what we bring makes fighting pointless, then perhaps that is our gift to the world."

"Which could be viewed as the most dangerous change of all, Captain," the vice admiral ruefully cautions. He then stiffens to attention and gives Spring a smart salute as Spring nods again in salute himself. The admiral then snaps a second salute to me as I return it, before he and his team board his helicopter.

Just as the door closes however, it reopens, and out steps the eager young lieutenant, with a jacket and bag this time, still clutching his Berker souvenirs.

"Permission to come aboard, Captain," he then readily addresses Spring, saluting, "as SurfLant's designated liaison, alongside NATO's."

"Permission granted," Spring accepts, nodding in salute. "Welcome onboard, Lieutenant. First Officer Tyrah Kristiansen will assign you accommodations."

"Yes sir, thank you," he accepts, seeming to have no problem with Spring being in command, or his superior.

A difference of generations, perhaps, I muse to myself.

We all then step away into the shelter of the hangar as the helicopter's blades start rotating and the helicopter soon lifts off, seemingly for that other world the vice admiral spoke of . . . one that thankfully still seems a little friendlier and more amenable to change than he might have preferred.

Soon, Tyrah was announcing a feast via the PA, to take place out on the landing platform in celebration of our tests and evaluation, and to encourage Spring's spirits as well. Like any good companion, Tyrah could read Spring without his saying a word. It made me wonder if she was part dragon, or at least had the perception of one.

A more casual, even festive atmosphere then prevails on the Drekar as the human crew change back into working overalls and khaki uniforms, with Roana and I donning village clothing once more. As the feast winds down later amid the fading twilight while we sail on towards Halifax, I find Spring at the stern, looking out upon the sea.

"You've won today," I say to him. "I hope you know that."

"Friends carried battle for me, for us," he replies.

"It's what Substance teaches," I remind him. "The circle. Each of us does a part, for all. It's your work that has won you friends and allies in both the Defence Ministry and in NATO, not mine. I impressed the king and General Thorndyke decades ago, but you've been doing most of the work recently.

"Take this victory though," I encourage him. "Celebrate with your crew, as part of the circle you are with them."

"That dragons find welcome in the larger world," he says however, "among even one more place and people . . . that would be the real victory."

Laying a hand on his neck, I gently turn him around to rejoin the festivities on the rest of the landing platform. Tyrah now comes up on Spring's other side, nodding to me that she'll take it from here as Spring glances between us. As I pat Spring's neck one more time and leave them, it seems so cruel that they are of different species . . . but maybe that is their strength together.

"Sir?" I'm interrupted in my solitary musings by our newest arrival, the young lieutenant. "I just wanted to thank you as well, for bringing me aboard. The admiral said in passing on the helicopter just as we were parting that you had something to do with it."

"I just wanted our navies to continue working together," I half smile, "while the vice admiral seemed to have other preferences."

"I can appreciate that, sir," the lieutenant admits candidly. "The admiral's old school, doesn't really like new ways or ideas. He should have stayed onboard though, as we had planned. There was even talk of inviting your ship to Norfolk, introducing you around . . . to folks with adequate clearances," he qualifies. "But when the admiral saw those surveillance videos, and learned Captain Ýsa was a dragon . . . he changed, shut everything down. I shouldn't be speaking out of turn, sir, but it almost seemed like he saw his world ending as he ran those quick interceptions over and over again, and read the reports I provided him.

"I just wanted you to know that not all of us are like that," he continues. "Having toured this ship's Mission Space, having had translated talks with dragons over lunch . . . this is just incredible. And I can't believe your X.O. bunked me with the KJK Dragon Squad leader, Kapteinløytnant Árvekni. He's told me through translation he named himself after a legendary Great Guardian among your people."

"I knew the previous Árvekni," I smiled, "even trained under him personally somewhat . . . at least under his supervision, anyway. That was thirty years ago though. He died in our battle, with the Soviets."

"Sorry to hear that, sir," the lieutenant replies. "But through translation, this Árvekni's told me he'll accept me as his rider for now," he then enthuses. "Me, riding a black dragon."

"Night Fury," I correct.

"He's told me to be prepared to get wet though," the young officer adds. "Something about an upcoming torpedo retrieval challenge that he wants to go for?"

"Yep," I smile. "We are still doing that, no matter what. We have a friendly little bet riding on it with the Hawaii's skipper."

"Awesome . . ." he enthuses.

Probably sensing himself being thought of, that same Night Fury, wearing epaulets of two and a half gold stripes with a ring on each of his shoulders, steps up beside the lieutenant and grunts, gesturing with his head off towards the hangar.

"Árvekni, sir," the lieutenant replies, glad to see him, but turning to me and whispering, "What does he want?"

"Well, from the head gesture," I surmise, "I think he's telling you it's time to hit the rack. He probably has an early watch, or training exercise he wants you to be up with him for. Sorry," I added, "but even though I've been around them thirty years, I still don't speak Dragon, or comprehend it all well. Not a linguistic genius here, I'm afraid . . . just a biological one."

"That's okay, sir," the lieutenant accepts, turning away with the Night Fury officer who's taken him under his wing, almost literally, for the time being. "Goodnight, and thanks again."

"You're welcome, Lieutenant," I smile, "and goodnight," I add, watching them go off through the ship's hangar. Comrades in arms, I think to myself as I watch them go. Different nationalities, different services, even different species . . . but comrades in arms nonetheless.

"Robert," I sigh aloud to myself, looking to the sky off to the southwest, "you are so missing out."

"His loss," Roana says, joining me as she extends an arm around my back.

"I don't recall telling you the vice admiral's first name," I remark, extending an arm around her back as well.

"You don't really know any other Roberts," she replies, "just Kaiju Bob . . . who is looking like he'll be taking the first of his retirement with us. Too bad you and I aren't there to welcome him back," she adds with a degree of sarcasm.

"He lives up in the dragon caves anyway when he's with us," I note. "We don't even know he's on island, unless we go looking for him there, and the dragons don't seem to mind him one bit."

"The dragons don't seem to mind anyone one bit," she snarks, "unlike some of us lesser mortals."

I just kiss her cheek.

"Rökkr clued me in on what happened today," she adds, glancing at me. "He tuned in on the whole thing. Says he didn't like what he was sensing from the vice admiral however, so maybe scratch what I just said about them not minding anyone. Still think this trip is worth making though, given the apparent mixed reception from the U.S., as well as perhaps Canada, despite the kudos from Oslo and Brussels?"

"It has to be worth making," I quietly reply, looking out upon the almost nighttime sea. "We don't have a choice."


	51. Chapter 51

_It's hard to believe, but three years ago we began this story together with the publication of the first chapter of 'Legacy of Myth' back on May 12, 2011. When first conceived, it had just sixteen chapters. But Spring, the battle with the Soviets, and so many other now indispensable characters and adventures had not even been contemplated. Once started however, both the story and its characters just seemed to assume lives of their own, taking the rest of us on an odyssey to extents even I had not initially imagined. All I could do was keep up with the flow of it all, chapter by chapter wherever it led._

_Even with this fifty-first and Third Anniversary installment though, this volume of the 'Taming a Heart' trilogy is not quite over, as it is insisting to me that there are a few more chapters yet. Then there are a couple of more distantly-related bonus chapters, and a whole fourth bonus novel in development from me on top of that!_

_I have argued with this story at times that I really need to be focusing the time I spend here on other writing that pays. But it seems to just reply with a smile, "You know you're enjoying this journey, too."_

_I am — no matter how many times I work on and re-read each and every chapter. And I hope you are, too._

_So let's break out the mead tea, straight mead, or your favourite beverage in celebration, and settle in as together we enjoy this latest chapter in 'Legacy of Myth'._

— _Norwesterner_

* * *

><p>Day 6<p>

Today is not a good day. Basically a strong cold front is heading east, while we are heading southwest off Greenland.

Storm and ship have been meeting violently since early this morning . . . not that the storm seems to notice us much however. The Drekar pitches and shudders crazily at times as everyone remains hunkered down inside.

"Just look at the horizon out the windows as you need to. It helps to maintain a visual reference amid all the motion you're feeling," Tyrah counsels Roana and I, checking in on us at one point during mid-morning as we lie in our bedding against our dragons, feeling quite ill. Substance and Rökkr though just seem to peacefully hibernate through it all. "And don't worry, this is a rest day for everyone. Even meal times are relaxed. The galley will just remain open with reduced and rotating staff if you want something. There are a number of others who aren't eating right now either."

"Spring's on the bridge?" I wonder as my own head swims with vertigo.

"I can't get him off the bridge," she sighs. "The Drekar is his ship, and he feels he must be vigilantly guarding her, practically every moment he feels she's in danger."

"A dragon would do no less," I half smile.

"I know," Tyrah smiles as well.

Later, donning village clothing, I briefly trek forward to the bridge. Spring doesn't even flinch as a great mass of green seawater surges over both the bow and even the windows of the bridge itself, briefly making the Drekar seem like she's a submarine.

"Make sure air intakes and uptakes remain clear," Spring calmly orders.

"Yes, sir," a bridge crewman replies as he then talks by phone beside me to Engineering. Amazingly, the diesel engines seem to continue quietly purring deep beneath us without interruption.

I just turn and stagger back to my cabin as the entire corridor lurches around me while I practically bounce between its sides.

"And I thought I once had problems with flying," I sigh out loud to myself, barely getting back inside Cabin 4 and making a beeline for the head or bathroom, reaching the toilet just in time.

— — — — —

Day 7

Hibernating like our dragons turned out to be the best idea for the rest of Day Six as I journal its events briefly over a breakfast in bed, delivered by Tyrah with a smile on a thankfully calmer morning of our seventh day at sea.

"Spring was on the bridge until well after midnight," she tells us, pulling back the partition between our cabins. "So I've ordered him to sleep in this morning."

Mess stewards are following her, more than gladly delivering platters of plated breakfasts of eggs, sausage and muffins with jam, along with platters of raw fish for the dragons, and another small cask of fresh, hot mead tea for all of us to share.

"Ordered?" I smile as Roana passes me my breakfast plate along with a napkin and utensils, not endeavouring much at all to keep the quilt up around her front in the presence of the two mess stewards, one male and one female. Among Berkers it never has been a big deal.

"Ordered," Tyrah confirms with a smile as I notice Spring is still lying on his bedding with his eyes closed, although I notice one is cracking open.

"Permission to wake, Captain?" his deep voice now murmurs as the two stewards depart, closing our cabin door behind them.

"Granted," she replies, cracking a smile as she proceeds to turn her back to us. The rest of us focus on eating our breakfasts as Tyrah strips off her black uniform sweater and then the rest of her clothing, quickly hanging them on pegs in a locker. She then dons a soft, tan-coloured indoor village tunic before slinking in under a quilt beside Spring as Roana now passes her a breakfast plate as well. "Just let me fall asleep against you before you get up," she finishes to her dragon companion.

"You've been up half the night?" I now wonder between bites.

"I relieved Spring around Two and ordered him to bed," she replies as she begins eating along with us. "So this is goodnight for me, even though I should be supervising the day work picking up and making repairs around the ship after the storm. Our second officer is more than capable of that however. Just snuggling with my dragon here is the reward I've wanted that has been keeping me going since first twilight this morning."

"Would you two like a ceremony of some kind?" I openly wonder as Roana, myself and our dragons continue enjoying our breakfasts. "While Substance or I are here?"

"Islanders would understand it," Tyrah responds as she and Spring glance at one another, echoing the same thoughts Spring had voiced to me the day I arrived onboard the Drekar. "But Outside Berkers—at least among some—it might just create problems we don't need on this ship. Around you, I can confess Spring is all the soulmate I want. We are essentially married, spiritually, and I could not be happier. Anything else, other than simply touching and resting against one another . . . it would just get in the way of the understanding and love we share. His spirit is strong, quiet, masculine, yet vulnerable — the perfect combination for me."

"You want children though," Spring gently notes beside her.

"That, my dragon, is your guilt talking more than my mind is," Tyrah reassures him, stroking his neck and chin with her right hand. "We will just have children together in Asgard someday, when our spirits are the same, and we are freed of these differing bodies. This life is not forever, just part of a long, long journey we are sharing across the universe."

"Tyrah . . ." Spring now quietly says with a tear falling from his closing eyes.

"You seem to be hers," I smile to Spring, "even before you were my son."

"I am both," he replies, glancing between Tyrah and myself. "I have always been your son, and Tyrah's mate . . . and forever will be, regardless of form."

"You need not our blessing," Substance notes as she shares morning fish with Rökkr behind Roana and I. "Your presence, and love, already richly bless us."

The sense of family among the six of us has never felt so strong, or so eternal.

My thoughts turn to Hope though, remembering that she is family, too . . . and with us for a change, even if she's in another cabin.

"Hope is on her own path, Lannce," Substance replies, sensing my thoughts. "Has been, through more than this life. But I call her anyway," she assures as Rökkr then reaches his large head to tap a marked speaker pad on the wall with his snout for her. "Hope Ýsa, Cabin Four for breakfast, please. Hope Ýsa, Cabin Four, breakfast," Substance's voice then booms on PA speakers throughout the ship, before Rökkr taps it off again.

"Sorry those default to ship-wide P.A. right now," Tyrah apologises. "It's part of the computer speech recognition problem we will be working on while in port at Halifax."

"I know," Substance replies. "That's why I made it announcement."

"Mind reading," Tyrah sighs as she now relaxes against Spring's side and shoulder, allowing her eyes to close after eating just half her breakfast, "another thing I love about dragons. Makes life, even command onboard ship, so much easier."

— — — — —

Hope soon joins us for breakfast, fully dressed in casual Outsider office wear for the day—a blouse, tan sweater and grey slacks—while the rest of us are anything but dressed amid our bedding. The sense of family closeness and unity now fade somewhat with her presence. I don't want the feelings to, and I can't explain why . . . but they do. Hope is the most closely related to Roana and I of anyone in the room, yet it doesn't feel that she is.

"She is a traveller, a guest, Lannce," I remember Substance telling me the day Roana and I decided to let Hope finish her secondary schooling living with the baroness near Oslo. "Family, like love, is sometimes choice, more than blood. You my family," she added that day, "more than any kin I ever know."

I just find myself lowering my head and closing my eyes in both questioning and grateful prayer while as usual, Hope hurriedly grabs a few bites off another's breakfast plate—this time Tyrah's at Tyrah's invitation. Not sticking around for conversation, my daughter then excuses herself, saying she's making progress with DuFont. She is truly our ambassador to the human world outside, more than anything else.

A moment later, I feel Roana kiss me on my left cheek as I hear, "Father," said by a deep dragon voice in front of me while I feel a large, saurian head poising ever so lightly on my feet amid the quilt. I open my eyes from prayer to see Spring looking right at me while carefully resting his head on my toes, asking me to see him for what he truly is, beyond even the Night Fury I am already so very proud of.

"Son . . . and mate," I sniff, looking back at him with a moved smile.

"That all blessing, and ceremony, Tyrah and I want," he replies to me.

All six of us in that cabin now move to share a silent, sacred embrace and nudging.

"Tyrah and I will come home to island for you in time. Care for you in old age," Spring now vows.

"And your offspring," I now say in turn, "be they dragon or human, and however they come for Tyrah and yourself, will carry on the Ýsa line. That I vow."

That feeling had returned in full among us, surging even more powerfully now.

"Family . . ." I sniff, unable to say anything more.

— — — — —

We then snooze for a while, digesting our breakfasts, as a wonderful clump of six amid the bedding in our joined cabins, before Spring reawakens all of us.

"Pride of ship is on line today," he reminds us. "Last day we can do it, before Halifax."

"I'll just turn in early tonight," Tyrah yawns beside him as she stretches.

Soon all six of us are dressed and on the bridge as a quiet yet playful tension fills the air.

"Call battle stations," Spring calmly directs Tyrah next to him.

"You know that's cheating," she replies. "They're supposed to surprise us. We agreed to it yesterday."

"Goalie can stand in front of net before referee blows first whistle," he counters. "Besides, our side needs to ready net anyway."

Tyrah can only smile, shaking her head, before hitting two buttons on her panel in turn, triggering alarms throughout the ship as her voice then echoes, "Bardaga stötvar! Battle stations!" on top of the alarms. "KJK grípari stötvar! KJK catchers to stations!" she continues in both Norse and English, likely for the benefit of our newest liaison officer.

Having joined Spring and Tyrah just moments before this as they briefly went down to the Mission Space to give a final coaching to our KJK Dragon unit, this was going to be interesting.

Instead of flying up either side of us, this time our two lead KJK Night Furies are flying forward over the ship, with a few long black cables and black webbing clutched in their talons between them. Both dragons have riders this time who are in full wetsuits with oxygen tanks, no less. The eager young U.S. Navy lieutenant seems as ready as Kapteinløytnant Árvekni is beneath him as both fly above our starboard bow.

"He drilled us in that storm yesterday," the lieutenant had told me to my amazement while we were down in the Mission Space beforehand. "Man overboard drills, punching right through the towering waves, everything. It was a blast!"

"And you're not a SEAL?" I wondered.

"Should have signed up for that when I had the chance," he sighed. "But maybe it's not too late with all of you," he added, looking at Árvekni beside him who seemed every bit as ready for challenge and adventure as I remember his past namesake once being.

Now, the two Night Furies are flying just in front of the ship's bow, the black cables and netting almost taut between them as all of us wait.

Finally . . . "Now he's cheating," Spring says. "All ahead flank. Helm hard right. Come to Zero Four Zero."

"Conn, Sonar. Torpedo launch, almost directly beneath us!" a voice from the dark alcove off the bridge reports. "Torpedo arcing and rising rapidly, now bearing One Seven Zero, depth one hundred, eighty metres, closing fast!"

"Conn aye," Spring loudly confirms.

"Accelerating to flank!" Tyrah replies, moving two levers all the way forward on her panel, while the ship begins to tilt to the left as we swerve to the right.

"Coming hard right to Zero Four Zero," the helmswoman on duty replies as the two Night Furies who were directly in front of us rise and fall back over the ship in unison, the cables and webbing still stretched between them.

Roana and I move to the glass-enclosed port bridge wing to watch as our two KJK 'catchers' now fly just above and beyond our stern. Levelling out, even banking inwards as it continues to accelerate into our turn, our ship is practically leaving a rooster tail as it almost flies across a fortunately smooth sea.

"Conn, Sonar," we hear, "torpedo still locked on us from astern, altering course as it rises. Depth ninety metres, range two hundred, twenty metres."

"Now steady on Zero Four Zero," the helm chimes in as well.

"Conn aye," Spring acknowledges allowing the status quo to exist for a moment longer. "Must get it shallower," I quietly hear him say.

We hear some banging in the corridor behind us as the ship levels off once more. "What on earth is going on?" a once again rumpled DuFont emerges onto the bridge to ask as Hope holds him up from the side.

"Need to get torpedo out from under us, while presenting a steady target KJK can defend," Spring replies, answering my silent question, right along with DuFont's.

"Conn, Sonar. Torpedo now arcing shallow, approaching from astern, depth fifteen metres, range now one hundred, fifty metres and closing," the alcove rapidly reports.

"Conn aye," Spring responds while looking to his left across the bridge. "Need to give our team a few more seconds, and few less metres deep," he seems to note to himself.

Roana and I see both Night Furies and their riders still flying hard behind us before they suddenly plunge into the foaming waters just off our stern.

"Slow to eighteen," Spring now seems to say with confidence, having not moved an inch from where he had long been standing.

"Slowing to eighteen," Tyrah confirmed, pulling the throttles back.

Roana and I now see the two Night Furies pierce the surface some distance behind the ship now, labouring to get airborne once more.

"They have fish," Spring notes with quiet triumph, still looking resolutely ahead. "Radio, please."

We on the bridge now hear a muffled cheering coming from the aft landing platform outside. Sure enough the two Night Furies have managed to vault themselves back into the air, and cradled in the webbing stretched between them is a torpedo with a bright orange nose cone, its concentric propellers can barely be seen, still spinning in opposite directions.

"You're on," Tyrah assures, now smiling herself as she glances at one of the video monitors on the panel.

"Roving Guardian, Roving Guardian," Spring now calls, "this is Valkyrie. We have your fish, over."

"Congratulations, Valkyrie," we hear back on the speakers as I just see a black periscope and radio mast some distance off our stern as well. "And you will have the five cases more of it we have on board, plus something else. Hats off to you and your KJK team! But we didn't hear any boats in the water, and you guys obviously got it out of the water as we lost contact. How did you do it? With just divers? Over."

"Resume course for Halifax," Spring replies with satisfaction. "We show you there. Remember to note in your log this was a surprise attack drill of yours, not A.S.W. exercise from us. Valkyrie out."

"You got it, Captain," the radio crackled back. "Looking forward to meeting you, and getting at least our one fish back. Roving Guardian out." Tyrah then pressed a couple buttons on her panel, ending the exchange.

"Does he know this ship has dragons, or that you're a dragon?" I couldn't help wondering out loud to my son across the bridge.

"Outside Guardians must vet and clear Hawaii's crew," he simply replies to me. "But skipper and crew will know . . . in Halifax."

— — — — —

Soon, Spring and Tyrah had let a watch officer take over on the bridge as we all walk down through the mess area, arriving in the hangar as a throng of human and dragon crew crowd around the ship's first captured prize . . . a practice torpedo. It was now resting on a cradle and dolly as a human engineer was screwing an access plate back down, having just shut off its propeller drive system.

"Torpedo Catchers. Nothing gets past us!" the enthusiastic young lieutenant now said next to me admiring it as he stripped off his diver's hood. "That's our nickname and motto now. Just came up with it!"

"_Our_ motto?" I wonder to him.

"I'm part of the Dragon KJK now," he replies. "Always, no matter where I go. Induction by fire, or immersion, you might say."

I was now having that same feeling I had when I began relying on Miles O'Connell thirty years ago.

"I like the sound of it," I now smile. "Your Berker teammates, and unit commander, approve?"

"Já, Höftingi!" I hear next to me as the other rider sporting red hair and a trimmed beard takes his diver's hood off as well. "Ve yist call ourselves 'Fisker Grípari' or 'Fish Catchers' though, along with his motto, and vith a torpedo added to our logo in za dragon's claws. Árvekni approves," he assures.

Somehow, it is good to hear that name in use once more.

But as that unarmed torpedo assumes its pride of place, in the middle of the mess deck no less for the time being—our ship now has its team to rally around, complete with a moniker and motto . . . and their first trophy, even if we have to give it back.

— — — — —

Day 8

Arrival day. It seems hard to believe, but this first leg of our voyage is already ending. And I have only a vague idea now of what can happen next.

As cleaning and polishing commences throughout the ship, I find my almost elderly cousin sunning himself in an old-fashioned wooden deck chair out on the landing platform's starboard side. Several crewmembers are hosing down the other side of the deck, slowly working their way around the stern towards him. I notice sprays are even coming out the opened portal on the starboard quarter from the Mission Space below as other crew seem to be hosing that area down, too.

"Haven't seen you in a couple days," I note to Gunnar as he lies reclined back in his chair, his eyes hidden by dark sunglasses.

"The storm convinced me to just relax," he responds. "With things the way they are now, I haven't seen a need to stop relaxing. But I haven't been seeing you or Roana on the mess deck either. The room service must be pretty nice."

"You know it's self-service for the most part," I reply. "Surely you've seen some of the KJK and other crew carrying food back to their berthing areas as I have. If everyone ate on that mess deck, it'd be crowded as all get-out."

"My wife is joining me in Halifax," he then says. "So I will be leaving the ship for a while. We've always been meaning to tour Atlantic Canada, perhaps beyond."

"What about Hope?" I wonder. "And our Canadian initiative?"

"It looks to be down to a simple island purchase or other financial deal between the Barony and Canada now, if it happens," he notes. "Norway will remain in the loop of course, but Tanner's objections have made your A.S.W. idea basically toast. So as there's nothing for me to negotiate, or even really monitor on behalf of Norway at this point, my wife and I thought we might as well take a well-deserved vacation that military retirement was supposed to mean for me. I'm just a third wheel now between Hope and DuFont anyway. She doesn't need me watching her anymore, and she can charm much better than I can."

"What do I do, Gunnar?" I sigh, standing next to him as the low, tree-lined Nova Scotia coast began to come into sight amid the early afternoon sun, our ship approaching it at a slight angle.

"There are many possibilities yet," my cousin assures, turning his head towards me from the chair. "Ones that won't have the Chinese and Russians trying to kidnap and brainwash dragons to re-balance the naval playing field. Should have borne that in mind myself, perhaps talked you out of the whole idea."

"Then this ship wouldn't have been built," I remark.

"Yes it would have," he gently counters. "This ship is perfect. It's what Berk needs, even a useful 'royal yacht' and emissarial platform for you all."

"Too bad we can't show much of anything off," I reply.

"Use this tool, Lance," my cousin advises. "This ship is your turf, Berk turf—turf that you can take anywhere in the world. You want to know what I think?"

I just look at him.

"Berk has been too cautious," he continues. "You came, Lance, thirty years ago, so questioning of everything, so ready to challenge, change and even fight. Yet at the same time, you were also trying to protect, even live in the past. Keep the dragons hidden, and to yourselves, on that island. Well, you can't do that anymore, can you?"

"Even you were urging caution to me ahead of Ran's funeral," I remind him. "And the grief and hassle I caught around our carrier trip to Old Berk? Learned my lesson there that I am more biologist than 'Lance the Great'. But even as a biologist, I didn't know where or when to quit, so far as the dragons were concerned."

"You proved me wrong though—proved us all wrong, on that and so many scores over the years," Gunnar replies. "You did your job, and did it well. Now it's time to take the next step in that original grand plan of yours . . . after too many years, in my opinion. The dragons, even you, have just forced your hand now.

"The dragons are a gift, Lance," he continues as I turn to him again. "They and what they have to offer rightly belong to the world . . . at least those in the world ready to accept them. It's time you stopped holding them, and even yourself, back.

"I've told Hope she's ready to fly solo," he says, getting up and folding his deck chair as the hose crew works their way towards us now along the starboard side forward from the stern. "I even said Norway trusts her. It's time you took your training wheels off, too, and started taking bold gambles again, like the cousin I used to know."

"Gunnar . . ." I reply, gratefully embracing him. "Thanks. Sure you won't stay though? Your wife would be more than welcome."

"We Ýsa men don't seem to work well in pairs," he smiles. "It's probably why we don't often have brothers, just cousins. Jorge's two boys have been a nightmare together—almost like the story of Great Grandfather Asger and his brother brought to life again."

"So that's why they've been taking so many vacations on the island," I realize.

"Dragon schooling, whenever they can," my cousin confirms. "Surprised Substance hasn't told you about it."

"She probably has," I admit. "But I am so busy on the island that things typically go in one ear and out the other. I've even mostly just been saying, 'Hi,' to Jorge and his family as we pass them while I run from one thing to another."

"It seems to make a real difference though," Gunnar notes. "Even the promise of another trip to the island by dragon from the lifeboat station seems to make those young boys behave themselves. Substance offering the hook of 'Junior Guardians' lately really seems to be enforcing a code of good behaviour on them, as she can tell whether they've been bad or good. Jorge and his wife would give anything to become permanent residents on the island now with that sort of progress."

"They should say something to me," I sigh with a smile, "even through you."

"We Norwegians wait our turn," he replies. "They're on the Barony wait list for island resident slots, but they don't want to pull rank or jump ahead as Ýsa, and they shouldn't."

"Well if Jorge's dad helps me succeed," I now suggest, "there just might be some vacancies opening up on the island as some migrate to a new settlement. Or Jorge and his family could go straight to the new settlement themselves."

"Jorge's more distant cousin could make a far bigger difference than his dad can," Gunnar now points out. "You have been needlessly second-guessing yourself around me, even during this trip. But when you take charge, make up your own mind, even as you did in taking Tanner off alone—that's when you're at your best."

"But we basically lost," I note, "even though I had to reassure Spring that we didn't."

"Trust me, you didn't," he assures. "You were just forced to change course, that's all. Oslo is pretty proud of you . . . and so am I. We all still support you in getting where you want to go.

"But this is your show, Cousin," Gunnar concludes as he picks up his chair while the hose crew now politely comes to a stop behind us, "not mine."

I excuse myself to the waiting crewmembers and step around them to a portion of the landing platform they've already cleaned as they resume washing the deck's final corner. Facing the Nova Scotia coastline once more, I find myself praying all the harder as my cousin disappears with his folded deck chair in through the ship's open hangar.

— — — — —

Finally, we arrive off Halifax a few hours later as the sun sets beyond the surrounding metropolitan and provincial landscape to the west.

Approaching the confined waters of Halifax Harbour, we have no choice but to accept a harbour pilot onboard, as most every other non-local ship does when entering or leaving the port.

So, Spring has to give one last order. "All dragons to quarters," he sighs to Tyrah.

"Allir drekar til ársfjórtunga. Allir drekar til ársfjórtunga," as she then relays on the ship's internal PA speakers, which are not really heard on the outside.

"Ship now yours," he adds to her. "I join others on Veranda, as this be our first time in North America. See you after customs clearance."

"Oleg should have that handled for us," I note as he passes me now.

Spring paused for a second, looking off to one side. "Problem there, too," he finally says. "Canada Customs want to search entire ship. Have DuFont help. Otherwise, Tyrah show you where we keep syringes onboard. She captain now."

Both of us now look down with a degree of sadness. "Would you like some company as we enter port?" I then offer though.

"No," my dragon son decides. "Outsiders expecting to see you. Besides, you human. Enjoy your freedom."

"Pilot coming alongside," a bridge crewmember notes in English, listening to his headphones. "Ladder in place. Second officer ready to greet him." Spring takes that as his cue to leave the bridge.

"We be on Veranda as well," Substance notes as she and Rökkr turn to follow Spring. "In case they want to search quarters."

"Now you see why I had the windows put in," Tyrah quietly notes to Roana and I as Substance and Rökkr disappear behind Spring.

— — — — —

Before long, an aging, thin, white man in a dark blue tie and orange safety 'float coat' parka arrives on the bridge, escorted by the young, male second officer.

"Pilot on the bridge," a crewman reports in English.

"Welcome, Captain," Tyrah turns to pleasantly greet him, as they shake hands. "Orlogskaptein Tyrah Kristiansen-Ýsa," she then says to my surprise, slipping me a glance. I could hug her, but I restrain myself as Roana grips my arm with a silent smile on her face as well.

True to our core traditions, Tyrah and Spring had come together in the dragon way. After years studying and then working together, they had just decided to make it so, and it now was. Tyrah was part of our family.

Fortunately, I note nothing but quiet, knowing smiles among the rest of our bridge crew.

"Captain Donald McCrae," the pilot simply replies without much of a smile. "Very well then, Commander," he says, using the English equivalent of her rank and going by the three stripes on her epaulets. He now looks out the forward bridge windows, completely oblivious to the change that Tyrah had just quietly announced for everyone to hear. "Let's come to course Two Five Zero," he then directs, "speed fifteen knots, please."

"Reducing speed to fifteen knots," Tyrah replies, moving the throttle handles herself, even though she now has an assisting officer available beside her.

"Coming to course Two Five Zero," the helmsman replies behind them.

Tyrah can't help silently slipping Roana and I another smile. I find myself smiling as well, wiping a tear from my eye as if I had been attending a wedding for her and my son. I can almost feel the silent joy radiating down from the deck above from my son as Tyrah slips a glance upward as well.

— — — — —

With our escorting sub surfaced and following some distance behind with its own pilot, the Drekar makes her way through the busy urban harbour I had only ever seen pictures of before this. Both naval vessels are now surrounded by a number of escorting security zodiacs sporting flashing blue lights. Even Halifax's famous little blue and white harbour ferries pause to let us pass.

Dragons, hiding in plain sight, I muse on the bridge though. The ship that's conveying them is being looked at by practically everyone around us . . . and the vessel herself is named 'Dragons' no less! If only everyone around us could see who was looking back at them through those intake grills and other select locations around our ship.

It dawns on me that I'm finally returning to the land of my birth however, even though the Province of Manitoba itself is some three thousand kilometres further to the west. But I feel so very changed now.

"They say you can't go home again," I quietly note to Roana beside me as she supportively holds my left arm. "Well, I guess I'm trying."

"That's because this never was your true home," she replies, kissing my cheek. "It was an ark, a waypoint, that kept you and your line safe, so you could return to us someday, and do all this," she notes with such pride as we both look around the bridge and the ship beyond.

It was true.

As darkness falls around us, we pass a number of moored Canadian warships and auxiliary vessels, all painted in a light grey. Finally, we are turning alongside an empty finger pier next to the other warships within Canadian Forces Base Halifax. Sure enough Oleg is on that pier, waiting for us in his dark grey trenchcoat alongside what look to be several Canada Customs inspectors in their dark blue parkas and uniform hats.

"I'd better go see Oleg," I quietly decide to Roana on the bridge. "He doesn't look happy."

"Well he's rarely if ever been smiling on the job," she notes, looking at him as well. "But I'd better go get DuFont. He's probably belatedly packing in his quarters."

I then make my way down the ramp between decks and through the mess area. Every dragon is gone and the mess crew are picking up and packing away most of the lounge mattresses for the time being. The ship seems so empty now, even though I know the dragons, along with a number of their human crewmates, are just hidden away. Sure enough, the hangar ramp down to the Mission Space is now raised as well, closing that deck off.

Making sure my Barony-issued photo I.D. badge is prominent alongside my chief's strap of office and crest—a concession we've had to make when we are on the security-conscious Outside now—I'm the first to step across the just placed gangway in my Outsider tie and slacks, wearing a blue parka this time over it all.

"They insist on doing a full inspection," Oleg sighs to me before I can say even a word in greeting.

"Gentlemen," I say to the customs inspectors assembled around him, "we have been hosting Deputy Prime Minister DuFont onboard, and he will be along shortly."

"He can't overrule a decision of the Regional Director General without a hearing and a court decision," the lead inspector asserts. "That could take up to a week of being quarantined if you want to go that route."

"How about on NATO security grounds?" I ask as Oleg gives me a subtle roll of his eyes.

"I have a Secret clearance," the officer replies. "Enough to see any classified space onboard. I don't have to know any devices or examine any written materials in there to search a space for contraband or dutiable goods with our dog."

"Dog?" I let slip out loud, wondering how on earth they would react to our dragons, and vice versa for that matter. The German Shepherd the inspector was holding was already seeming fairly agitated as it looked at our ship.

"You do know that anything I hear you say in front of witnesses—" he begins.

"Yes, I know that," I quickly respond, reaching into my pocket for my Canadian passport, which I then flash at him. "I'm a dual citizen."

"Thought you didn't exactly sound Norwegian," he replies, briefly taking the passport and looking at it before returning it to me. "Do you have the 'Dec forms, so we can get started with what you're going to let us do anyway?"

"Oh, Customs Declaration forms," I realize, having filled one out earlier in the afternoon myself. "The captain and first officer will be along with those in a moment."

"Only the ship's captain is really permitted to step off that gangway until we've completed our inspection," the officer notes.

"And me," the pilot interjects behind me, flashing his own photo I.D. badge as he stepped off the gangway ahead of Tyrah and her second officer. "Hope there won't be any problems," he remarks to us as a second inspector stops him to double check his I.D. "Nice ship, by the way," he adds, looking back. "Bit strange that she's supposedly just a research vessel though. Looks like much more from what little I saw."

Both Oleg and I quietly shake our heads.

"Right," the lead inspector says. "Will whoever is the captain please step forward and give consent for this vessel to be inspected if you wish to be cleared into Canada."

"That won't be necessary," I hear behind me as Roana and Hope now lead DuFont across the gangway, flashing his federal minister's photo I.D.

"You can take it up with the magistrate, sir," the inspector replies. "My orders are to inspect all incoming ships to our satisfaction, military or civilian."

"The government is granting this ship a diplomatic exception for NATO security reasons," the minister maintains to my grateful relief.

"I am informed that this ship will be spending extensive amounts of time in Canadian waters and visiting other Canadian ports, including the West Coast," the officer maintains. "So with all due respect, sir, either we inspect this ship tonight, or we can take it up with a magistrate, or you will need to get the prime minister to pass an Order in Council or an Act of Parliament. I want to see something official in writing that orders me to deviate from established procedures, otherwise someone else—the political opposition, or even the media—could be all over me and my department the next time there is a smuggling scandal."

"Alright," I counter, "how many of you need to inspect the ship?"

"I'm the only one with a secret clearance. So by rights it would be just me, and Angus here," he answers, glancing at the dog beside him.

"A secret clearance is insufficient for the . . . resources you will inevitably see onboard in some spaces," I reply. "So, per the classified Berk Sovereignty Treaty of Nineteen Forty-Three, to which Canada is a signatory as one of the World War Two Allied powers," I continue, whipping an up-to-date, folded copy of the treaty from my coat which I open and flash to him, "as its head of state, I will allow you to see our top secret, even ultra-classified resources, so long as you consent to be injected with short-term memory erasing drugs that both NATO and Canada have approved once you emerge on this helo deck and assure your colleagues that you have found no contraband or other problem goods onboard, without revealing what the top-secret resources you have seen inside are. Deal?"

"Let me see that," the agent asks as I pass the copy of the treaty to him. "This is just secret, right?"

"Just secret," I confirm as he flips through its several pages of text in Norse and English columns.

"Alright . . . I can accept this," the lead inspector decides.

"You could have accepted my order as well, Officer Montraign," DuFont adds, making note of the name on the man's parka.

"That's Superintendent, Minister," the inspector replies with some further irritation.

"You ready, Superintendent?" I invite with a sweep of my hand towards the gangway, as once again Oleg is looking really nervous. "Although I cannot guarantee how your dog will react, so I ask you to keep him on a tight leash."

"What on earth do you people have in there?" the superintendent now wonders as he takes another wrap of the dog's leash in his hand as he begins following me across the gangway towards the Drekar's landing platform.

"Orlogskaptein," I instruct behind me, "please have the Mission Space opened for now. Standby on other spaces as needed. Also have crew meet us in the hangar with a med kit, just in case."

"Yes, Chief," Tyrah replies before both she and her second officer are speaking in Norse into walkie-talkies. I can now practically feel the superintendent giving me a questioning look from behind.

Saluted by the gangway watch as we reach the landing deck, the superintendent and I return the salutes as I lead him forward with his dog into the hangar. Its large door now closes behind us just as the ramp to the Mission Space below is being lowered.

_Menace a little,_ I now mentally think, _but not too much. Just enough to scare him off._

The dog takes one whiff and a glance near the top of the ramp and starts barking wildly.

"Easy boy!" the superintendent says, struggling to maintain control of the dog as he now turns to look down the ramp as well.

"What the—?" the superintendent begins to exclaim as a Nightmare at the bottom of the ramp now lights itself ablaze while snarling. Other dragons of various breeds are also snarling not far behind it down in the Mission Space while their human team mates seem to have made themselves scarce for the moment.

"Seen enough?" I casually query to a shocked and slack-jawed superintendent as I relieve him of the dog's leash as the German Shepherd now attempts to run away from the flaming dragon. The fiery Nightmare is slowly but steadily crawling up the ramp, snarling quietly though so as not to be overheard from outside.

"I-I . . ." the superintendent stammers. "W-What are those doing on a sh—" he then faints as two crewmen are there to catch him, right on cue.

"Not yet," I say though to the crewmen as one is poised to inject him with a syringe. "Bring him nose to nose with Løytnant Skelfa. Løytnant," I add, "keep your flames on a moment longer, please.

"Apply the smelling salts," I then request as the superintendent is positioned sitting up in front of the menacing Nightmare while the dragon looks right at him with the narrowest of eyes amid the dragon's own flames.

"AAAAAHHH!" can now be heard well beyond the hangar as the superintendent awakes to a truly hellish sight that fills his vision.

"Right this way, Superintendent," I gesture back towards the landing deck as the hangar door reopens. The two crewmen now help the shaking superintendent to his feet, while the dragon has extinguished itself and dutifully disappears back down the ramp. Two other crew take control of the dog from me, immediately injecting it with a syringe to pacify it before one of them picks it up to carry it back ashore.

As soon as we emerge back out through the hangar doorway . . . "Clear them! Just clear them!" the superintendent yells to his colleagues on the pier, before turning to me. "I do not want to remember what I just saw in there," he then almost begs.

"Not a problem," I quietly assure, trying to restrain my smile as I inject him in the neck before he falls back into the arms of the two crewmen who have been supporting him.

A moment later we are all back on the pier. The superintendent is laid out unconscious on a gurney however as our crew now pass him to the other customs officers, while one of the other customs officers accepts the unconscious dog into his arms from our crew as well.

"Do we want to know . . . ?" another of the officers now holding the gurney begins to ask.

"No, you don't," I quietly assure.

"Well, welcome to Canada," a different officer says as he just pockets the declaration forms and they all leave carrying their boss away on a stretcher.

"Merci," I reply, remembering my basic French as I turn to look at an astonished Oleg.

"You gotta have more faith," I quietly assure him with a pat on his shoulder. "The dragons and I . . . we have things handled." _Thank you, everyone. Good job!_ I mentally add to the dragons at the same time, hearing a couple muted roars in reply from within the hangar and Mission Space.

Before long, the submarine Hawaii pulls up along the other side of the pier from us and completes their mooring evolutions as well.

As soon as their gangway is placed by the same crane that positioned ours, the sub's skipper steps across, with his crew's customs 'dec forms in hand.

"Who do we clear with?" he asks me in confusion.

"Minister?" I then invite.

"Welcome to Canada, Commander," he simply replies with a smile as a couple of customs officers are somewhat belatedly walking back onto the pier towards us. "NATO diplomatic exception tonight. You're cleared for shore leave. I'll take your 'dec forms, and take care of everything else."

He then walks to intercept the two customs officers, handing them the small sheaf of forms and saying a few words to them before they turn and walk away while DuFont simply returns to us with a quiet smile.

"Commander," Tyrah now greets, stepping forward offering her hand, "Orlogskaptein Tyrah Kristiansen-Ýsa, First Officer of the Drekar."

"A pleasure to finally meet you, Orlogskaptein," the commander gladly replies. "Where's Captain Ýsa?"

"Inside," she assures. "Just allow us to erect the shelter we need across our helo deck there, and our feast will begin shortly, if a little late."

"Allow us, Orlogskaptein," the commander warmly counters. "Representing the Aloha State, we want to give your crew as full a Hawaiian Luau as we can in payment of our friendly wager."

"That is where we step in, Commander," Oleg now interjects, flashing his credentials and badge. "Brigader Oleg Hansen, Chief of Security for the Nation of Berk. As we radioed you, we will need to inspect all crew boarding the Drekar for this event, and as you know, no cameras or recording devices of any kind will be allowed . . ."

— — — — —

Soon, the Drekar's entire landing deck is covered by a large shipyard construction tent, with just one flap opened to the outside where the gangway penetrated it. Outside Guardians have set up inspection tables on the pier either side of the gangway and are inspecting and briefing each of the Hawaii's crew before they are permitted to board.

"Is all this really necessary?" I quietly wonder to Oleg as his inspection regime begins.

"Someone got a look at a Zippleback taking a swim in Scotland's Loch Ness one day a number of decades back," he replies, "managing to get a picture, even a couple of fuzzy ones . . . and look what happened there."

"Alright," I relent. "Say no more."

I turn to reboard the ship, flashing my own I.D. as a crewmember nods with a smile. Stepping through the canopy flap and being saluted by the gangway watch inside the tent now, I spot Spring, Árvekni, as well as Substance, Rökkr and several other dragons along with more of our human crew on deck under the canopy, ready to greet our guests from the sub. The torpedo is even poised at the hangar entrance on its dolly, ready for the hand-back.

"You ready for this?" I wonder to Spring as I come beside him.

"I live for this now," he replies. "I wish I could greet every human on Earth, and assure they have nothing to fear from us. Wish you hadn't scared customs superintendent though."

"Hey, it got us cleared into Canada with minimal hassle," I defend as the sub's commander, attired in a khaki uniform and hat, is now the first visitor to step through the canopy flap.

"Commander," Spring now calls to his counterpart across the enclosed deck.

"What the—?" the submarine skipper almost exclaims. "You mean what they told me outside is real?"

"Doctor Lance Hyse," I introduce extending a hand. "Chief Ýsa of Berk. And this is the captain of our ship, Kommandørkaptein Spring Ýsa."

"So you're the . . . ? I was war-gaming against _you_?" the sub skipper stammers, looking at Spring.

"Yes, Commander," Spring answers in his deep dragon's voice.

"And that's not a distortion is it?" the commander realizes. "I thought your voice was distorted for some weird security reason."

"I am sorry you could not have been told, until now," my dragon son replies.

"How'd you track me?" the skipper wonders.

"By sensing your mind, and life essences of you and your crew," Spring replies.

"How far away?" he asks.

"Around two hundred miles so far," Spring answers. "Haven't had to try farther, but could."

"No wonder we received a top secret communiqué from Admiral Tanner saying this whole mission is now top secret, and to discontinue war games," he now recognizes. "How many of you can do this?"

"Just me, so far," Spring responds. "Although KJK dragons have trained to intercept missiles and torpedoes, cuing from me. They could easily detect subs if asked to."

"You could beach me, you know that?" he sighs, mulling the implications now. "Put my whole fleet out of business."

"Don't want to," Spring answers. "Just want to work together, for good of all."

"I never thought I'd—" the skipper says, before stopping himself.

His Executive Officer is the next to be cleared, emerging through the flap, saying, "Holy . . ." upon spotting our dragons.

"What do I do?" the sub commander now wonders in front of Spring and I. "What the hell do I tell my crew? It's like we were beaten by—that we've been escorting space aliens or something this whole trip."

"No," Spring gently replies, "fellow sentients, who have always been sharing Earth with you . . . our common home. We must be careful in who we reveal ourselves to. We have always had to be, alongside our human allies and protectors."

"Our tribe has been protecting and co-existing with dragons as equals," I note, "for a thousand years on a remote Norwegian island. We carefully revealed ourselves to Free Norway and the Allies during World War Two," I add, producing the copy of the treaty again from my pocket and unfolding it as the commander now takes a look at it.

"You guys are really part of NATO," he says almost incredulously as he flips through the pages.

"Spoke with General Collins at start of our trip," Spring confirms.

"Who assigned us to you," the skipper notes as he finishes skimming through the treaty copy. "This is all legit," he then sighs to both Spring and I.

"I love voyaging across the sea in ships, too," Spring says.

"How'd you intercept and retrieve the torpedo?" the commander now asks, spying it nearby.

"Two dragons and a net," Spring responds. "It almost slip through, until they got it into the air."

The skipper now shakes his head as his exec approaches. "Harv . . ." he stammers to his colleague, seeming not to know what else to say.

"You mean he's Ýsa?" the sub's X.O. wonders, looking at Spring and his naval epaulets in amazement as the commander just nods.

Other Hawaii crewmembers begin to emerge through the canopy flap as Roana and Tyrah now step forward to take a more active role in greeting our guests. I now begin to wonder if this whole exercise is such a good idea . . . if there might ever be a good time for dragons to begin revealing themselves to the larger world. Perhaps Oleg and his everpresent cautions are right after all.

"Look, Commander . . ." I begin to gently interject.

"It makes me wonder what else is out there," the skipper says at the same time though. "What else is being hidden from us, or watching us, or could blow us out of the water."

"We fight off two of your torpedoes, and cruise missile," Spring notes. "But have we ever fired at your ship once, even in friendly contest?"

"Nope," the commander admits. "You haven't."

"Dragons protect," Spring continues. "That who we are, what we do. You safer with us than with your own kind."

"If you can read minds as you say," the commander then decides, "would you tell my crew what they need to hear? What we all need to hear? Because I don't know where to begin."

"Everyone!" Spring then loudly calls, bringing both crews now gathering on the covered landing deck and in the adjacent hangar to silent attention. "I am Kommandørkaptein Spring Ýsa. Crew and I welcome you aboard Drekar.

"I know you of the Hawaii were not told who you were escorting," Spring continues. "You may even feel deceived, lied to. But my kind . . . we were once slaughtered a thousand years ago, by your kind. By humans. We were reduced to demonic myths, to dark stories you told one another. We hid. We had to.

"Now," he says, "we want to come out of hiding. Live openly with humans, as we have for thousand years with our human brothers and sisters and families on Isle of New Berk. We have known peace, even joy there. That is all we want to share with you . . . to bring to whole world—yours, and ours.

"You are second group of non-Norwegians we have introduced ourselves to in thirty years now," Spring notes as he glances at me. "Thirty years," he emphasizes. "Hopefully, that makes you feel special. Because you are special . . . special enough that we want to call all of you friends.

"We believe in God, Spirit, too," he continues. "Spirit chose well in bringing you and us together. Your ship, Hawaii, stands for Aloha spirit, one of welcome. That is what we wish to offer . . . welcome. Sharing feast with you, sharing wager your skipper and I made. Sharing it equally, among all—no winner, no loser. Just celebrating friendship made and discovered.

"Reason we are here, that this ship in North America," he now admits, glancing at me once more, "is that we have been saved, by man who adopted me as son, Doctor and Chief Lance Ýsa. We now grow too many for our island home on Norwegian coast. Need to find a new, safe, place for some of us to live. Someplace we can even share, and live in peace. We would like help . . . your help. But we have no right to expect it.

"We invite you to be among the first to help correct a thousand years of wrong though," Spring says, glancing down, "a thousand years of fear and myth. We invite you to be first to help us extend peace, truth, joy, and love . . . eventually to whole rest of world.

"It probably take hundreds more years," he sighs, "maybe thousand. But let it start tonight . . . between our two ships, and our two crews. Thank you."

One human, I couldn't tell whether they were Berker or American, starts clapping, followed by another, and then another. Soon, the entire landing platform and the hangar beyond is surging with growing applause, even cheering, and dragon roaring as American submariners and Berk dragons begin mingling, standing together as the applause and cheering continue.

The sub commander now glances nervously about, seeming to wait for the applause and cheering to die down.

"Attention on deck!" Spring finally calls out himself, bringing both crews silent once more, and to attention. "At ease," he then adds as both crews relax somewhat.

"Thank you, Captain," the commander then opens. "But I don't really know where to begin . . . except to say that I guess I've been wrong about a lot of things. I was thinking you were human, and then psychic—which I guess wasn't far from the truth—as you tracked me, move for move. Even evaded my mock attack that became the reason for our gathering tonight. I thought for sure I had you with that one, attacking from right underneath you.

"Then, when I came onboard just now," he says, "and discovered you weren't human, but a dragon . . . man, that threw me for a loop."

The commander pauses for a moment as Tyrah now moves beside Spring and Roana beside me.

"I don't know what to make of any of this," he finally continues. "It's not in any manual or training I or any of the rest of us have ever been through. I've made it my business to know both who our friends are, and who our enemies are . . ."

"We are not lone intelligences in the universe, Commander, or even here on Earth," I gently interrupt. "Every Outsider here, as we call them, even myself, have been through the moment you are going through right now . . . reconciling impossibility with fact standing right before us and looking us in the eye as an equal.

"You have a choice, just as I did, thirty-one years ago," I note. "Spring has told you the story of his kind, in brief. He has also told you of our need, why we are reaching out, and voyaging out from our ancient, hidden home. We offer you a hand, and paw, in friendship and trust. We now have no choice but to. You and your crew do have a choice, however—to accept our invitation to friendship, or to forget, with the NATO-approved assistance of our memory-erasing injections, that this ever happened.

"We hope, even pray, you won't turn away from us though," I finish. "But the choice is yours."

Spring now looks to his left toward the open hangar as a KJK Zippleback pushes and steers the torpedo on its dolly out onto the landing space among us. The dolly's squeaking wheels are the only sound amid the silence at the moment.

"We return your torpedo to you," Spring simply notes, looking at the sub commander once again. "Fully usable."

"It didn't run out of gas, the way they usually do in order to be caught?" the commander asks.

"Its propellers were spinning until our engineer stopped them," Spring replies.

"Cook, Columbus, and other seafarers once made great discoveries of other races and species," DuFont now interjects near us to my surprise, holding a glass of mead. "You are being given the same opportunity now that they once had. Some of them didn't always make the right choice. But these," he said, glancing at the various dragons gathered amid everyone else, "might just become your neighbours, and mine, if things go well."

Hope just cracked an irrepressible smile to me across the enclosed landing platform. She did have a mission in life—a clear one—and she was fulfilling it.

"Don't you think we should welcome them to our North American 'neighbourhood'?" DuFont now smiles to the submarine's commander, raising his glass.

The skipper looks between DuFont and the torpedo. A subtle smile begins emerging on his face as well. Then, taking a deep breath, he turns back toward Spring and salutes, before instinctively extending his hand.

"Welcome to North America," he says. "Commander Bart Saunderson, U.S.S. Hawaii. Pleased to meet you, Kommandørkaptein."

A cheer goes up from everyone as Spring somewhat awkwardly raises his thick right paw and one of his black talons to touch the commander's extended hand—quite likely the first dragon to ever try shaking hands with a human. Even I hadn't thought of doing that with them before.

The sub commander then gives a nod to another of his officers poised at the gangway before that officer motions outside through the flap. Hawaiian war drums then sound in surprise from outside the tent on the pier as a number of large roasted hams are brought through the tent flap on trays by the Hawaii's crew. One of them breaks off to talk with one of our astonished galley crew. Both of them then hurriedly take others to erect more serving tables while the other bearers wait.

"It's not a perfect luau," Commander Saunderson smiles as we watch the briefly stalled procession. "But it's the best we can do with the galley facilities and space we have. There's just a certain pride in serving aboard the Hawaii though. My crew have just decided they wanted to go an extra mile over time, and I've simply let them—even told them to go for it.

"We planned to give all this to you," he now admits to Spring. "Seeing you and your kind though, Captain . . . I just had to allow our side, even me, a moment."

"You help us refine introduction technique then?" Spring invites.

"Glad to, Kommandørkaptein," he formally accepts.

While both our crews now set up serving lines on one side of the landing deck next to the hangar, four more of the Hawaii's crew, three men and one woman, wearing mostly just grass skirts, the woman in a bikini top, begin emerging through the canopy flap. As the drummers come through the flap as well, beating their war drums even harder and faster, the small dance troupe now begin performing what seems like a fairly good Polynesian routine—although on a sub, I am amazed they had the space to even practice.

It is all a festive cultural immersion—albeit not native to Nova Scotia, or even Canada for that matter—that I am truly glad our dragon crewmembers, let alone our human crew, are experiencing for the first time.

I glance to see my cousin a short distance away amid the crowd, now with his wife beside him, glancing back at me with a smile. He is right. The Drekar is a perfect means, tool, even place for us to begin truly meeting the world. That, not sub-hunting or even patrolling, is her true mission.

"Hawaii might be nice," Spring finally notes beside me amid the festivities with a smile as the dancers continue performing. "It warm there, and they have islands," he picks up from some of the rest of us. "Could we check if they might have available island?" he then asks me.

"Dragons . . . in Hawaii?" I muse aloud.

Suddenly, the possibilities do seem endless . . . some very enticing.


	52. Chapter 52

_I'm reminded by one reviewer, DaMonkMan, that I overlooked the fourth anniversary of this trilogy as a whole back in April. I can't believe it's been that long, that this saga has been this long or taken us all as far as it has. Several of you who have reviewed or messaged me have said that this saga should become a movie, or be picked up somehow by the producers at DreamWorks of the HTTYD film series or franchise. But spanning so many words and pages, so many experiences, thoughts and years, even lives and lifetimes . . . how could this tale really be told other than how it is, here? It is an online, serialized saga, taking full advantage of this medium. These stories are sharing themselves the way they want, freely, through words and imagination in ways that even hours of movies or TV episodes could not._

_So I invite you to rejoin Lance and his family, along with the Drekar and her crew, as they continue their travels far from home, in search for a second one . . ._

— _Norwesterner_

* * *

><p>Day 9<p>

Ships seem a lot less exciting when they're tied to a dock. As I step onto the pier with Roana to take her on a date into town this sunny morning, the sleek Drekar just seems chained somehow, even in bondage. The light grey ship looked a lot better when I first saw her at sea the day I joined her, running, even slowly cruising off New Berk, free as she was meant to be.

Substance, Rökkr and Spring have all seen us off from inside the large tent still draped across the aft landing platform. They knew I felt guilty about leaving them behind cooped up in the ship, but, "We belong in that town as much as fish does in air," Spring sagely noted, before turning away to attend to ship's business with Tyrah at his side. This was a work day for the two of them as they headed back inside through the hangar, stepping around a volleyball net being set up on the covered landing platform for a friendly series of games between the crews of the Hawaii and the Drekar.

A number of the sub's crew had already shown up in shorts and t-shirts, complete with a volleyball, as they conduct further translated conversations with several of our KJK riders and dragons before a first game. My last sight as I turned to step outside the tent was of Árvekni and his US Navy rider, whose name I still haven't learned, talking with a uniformed, dark-haired male lieutenant from the Hawaii, as a blonde female rider in her own KJK t-shirt and shorts translates among them.

The sight is almost enough to make me want to just order the tent removed, the Drekar shifted to a public dock nearby along the downtown waterfront, opened for public tours, and a press conference called. Once the dragons were introduced, and after the inevitable jaw-dropping . . . people, at least the more open-minded among us, could accept them as fellow sentients, even equals. Only a morning later, the Hawaii's crew are already proving that. But my inner sociologist starts reciting a litany of dangers such a sudden and unorchestrated introduction could engender. If even a think tank assembled within the Barony still can't agree on the next steps beyond selectively introducing dragons among further cleared members of the international military and intelligence communities after the several years they have been meeting, who am I to argue?

As we head off the pier towards a blue Audi sedan that is waiting for us, Roana and I have each been given what they call 'smart phones' while we're ashore so we can be contacted if anything comes up, or call for help if we somehow become lost in Halifax, as dragons won't exactly be able to come to our rescue in town. But smart as my mate and I are, neither one of us feels comfortable using these things. Mine is on, but tucked away in the vest pocket of my blue windbreaker. I leave my chief's strap and crest behind this time, carrying my photo badge and Canadian and Norwegian passports for ID, having not had a valid driver's license for some time now.

My cousin, Gunnar, and his wife, Jana, greet us at the sedan they've rented to explore the Maritime provinces with, happy to run Roana and I to the downtown waterfront on their way out of town.

"Always hitching rides," Gunnar quips however as my mate and I settle into the car's back seat.

"Well, no one has let me drive these things in thirty-one years now," I reply as he sits down in front at the wheel.

"I wasn't being allowed to either, once I was promoted to generalmajor in the Air Force, even before my transfer to the Navy," he notes. "But once I was finally permitted to retire, I could drive again as much as I liked. Maybe that's something you should consider."

"Don't tempt him," Roana half seriously interjects beside me as the car starts moving.

— — — — —

Before long, the sedan is parked in a garage downtown and the four of us are at an outdoor table of a café on the Halifax waterfront, sharing a brunch together before Gunnar and Jana take off.

"Historic Lunenberg is our first objective," my cousin notes over his fish and chips at the busy eatery. Roana and I each find bacon cheeseburgers to be far more of an enjoyable rarity where we come from, along with the first authentic Canadian fries and gravy I've had in a long time.

"A cod fishing and whaling port?" I wonder though, knowing of Lunenberg from history and geography lessons I once had in high school back in Manitoba. "Haven't you seen enough of those back in Norway?"

"This one apparently has an historic sailing ship," he replies. "Something Norway didn't get around to preserving many of."

"The Bluenose Two is a replica," I almost grump, finishing another bite of my burger, citing something I learned as a Canadian schoolboy, "although built in Nineteen Sixty-Three, she's old enough now to be historic in her own right."

"Lunenberg seems a charming small seaport," my cousin notes. "But you don't look or sound very happy."

"Well," I quietly note, "without being able to say much here in public, I'd just like to know what comes next . . . what can come next. I'll be ordering us on to British Columbia with absolutely nothing in place unless I can meet with the prime minister while we're here in Halifax. There isn't even a road map for us anymore since Tanner basically shot or shut us down."

Roana puts her left arm around me while trying to eat her messy burger with her left hand. I quietly obsessed about this with her last night in our bedding, saying yet again that life on the island used to be a lot simpler until I came along. Now at brunch, Roana just finishes her bite and wipes her mouth before just steadily looking at me, her eyes squinting in the bright but breezy sunshine.

Having endured—well, loved me—for thirty-one years now, she knows not to counter or argue with my stronger doubts or insecurities. She has just come to calmly look at me with an arm around me or even a full embrace at such times, until I stop and look at her.

I can never, ever help but crack a smile and slow down when she does that.

"That's my Lance," she finally praises while I warmly put an arm around her as well. "One step in blind faith at a time. But not now, okay? We're on shore leave here, even from problems and pressures—ones I am sharing with you every step and day."

"Almost makes me want to get a room," I quietly reply.

"I wouldn't mind," Roana smiles as she proceeds to dip a fork into the fries and gravy on my plate, spearing a couple of them.

"Just let others carry some of the load," my older cousin advises across the table, smiling himself as he and his wife draw closer as well, "give things a chance to open up, and take care of a partner who obviously knows how to take care of you. It's what I intend to do," he finishes, looking at his spouse.

Roana and I warmly part from them after our early lunch as we then shop in the tourist district, eventually paying to take a ferry ride across the harbour we had just sailed up in far greater style the day before.

As I stand at a railing of the open upper deck on the small ferry while we make our return crossing back towards downtown, holding Roana from behind as we see the Drekar and Hawaii moored in the distance across the harbour . . . I just can't shake this almost dragon-like sense of misgiving I have inside, despite all the scenery and activity around me.

— — — — —

Days 9.75 and 10

Roana and I wind up getting a hotel room in downtown Halifax, one right on the waterfront with great views, for two nights. We phone to inform the Drekar's duty officer of our plans. Fortunately they had pre-programmed the ship's shore phone number on something called 'speed dial'. I press the buttons they showed me on my phone's touch screen, and amazingly the call goes through. My laptop is then locked away in the hotel safe, and we're both tempted to throw our smart phones in there while we're at it, but decide to keep them. As we take a swank elevator up to our room, I pledge to focus on Roana and Roana alone for at least the duration of our stay.

I then proceed to do so though, even gallantly carrying my mate and wife into our room and making love with her in the kind of plush white bedding neither of us have seen in some time. However, she starts worrying and obsessing as I hold her.

"You've infected me," she finally sighs after practically reciting my own litany of worries right back to me.

"How about I do a whole lot worse to you?" I finally offer with a smile.

"I'll take it," she welcomes with a growing smile of her own as she gently wraps her bare arms about my shoulders.

— — — — —

Day 11

Having enjoyed what basically became a second honeymoon—well, our first really, as I can't remember us having one back on the island when we originally mated—Roana and I return to the Drekar at CFB Halifax by taxi this evening, more united than ever and ready to go forth into whatever awaits us.

Thank goodness the Barony provided us both with signature level credit cards however, as neither of us has even a bank account back on the island. They came in handy for not only the hotel, but also when Roana took us shopping today, noting that no one else was wearing village clothing onboard the Drekar, and that both of us needed warmer, and slightly more stylish wardrobes for our arctic trip. So we're coming back with bags of slacks, shirts, sweaters, socks, shoes and parkas—just one or two for each of us though.

It's everything I was originally dreaming of when I settled on New Berk decades ago . . . but I've just grown so used to village clothing!

— — — — —

Days 12 through 16

Roana and I, as well as Spring, Tyrah and the rest of the Drekar's crew, are finding ourselves remaining in port longer than planned.

First we've been delayed by DuFont's assurances that he could schedule a visit and talks onboard our ship with the prime minister. But it is campaign season in Canada, and the closest the PM has gotten so far is Levis, Quebec. Apparently he and his party are confident of victory in Nova Scotia and the rest of the Maritime provinces. But DuFont is in the national capital, Ottawa, still trying.

Then there's the problem of the Drekar's computer systems. A whole team of cleared I.T. folks from Gerhard Technologies are onboard, doing who knows what on the bridge, down in Engineering, and elsewhere throughout the ship. At least Spring has been kept busy saying practically every command and word he can think of in English, Old Norse, Bokmål and even Dragon as the techs try to get the computers to understand what he's saying and act on it. Fortunately, they have finally enabled the polarization function on the bridge windows as well, so Spring can be on the bridge in broad daylight in port and no one will see him, even from the pier only metres away.

"Let's just disable computer control," Spring sighs today on Day 16 though as Roana and I look in on the goings-on inside the bridge. While hardly any crew are present besides Spring and Tyrah, a number of techs are working around them as everything seems to be on in testing mode. I can even feel the subtle hum of the ship's diesel engines far below.

"I have all you to do things at command," my dragon son continues. "Captain does not need to push buttons or levers by self."

"We have installed an updated version of the voice recognition software," a tech assures from a console in the alcove just off the bridge. "You could try it in the demo mode we've set up, or we could go through a process to disengage everything and set things up for manual control. Your choice, sir."

"Go ahead, try it," Tyrah encourages him, stepping away from her console at the front of the bridge.

"Nothing will happen?" Spring double-checks, glancing back towards the tech in the alcove.

"The screen is still showing test mode," the tech assures, looking at it.

"Alright," Spring sighs, looking down as he pauses to pick a command at random. "Computer, engines. All ahead Two," he then directs, referring to the numbered settings on each of the bridge engine throttle casings.

"Engines, all ahead Two," a female computer voice dutifully confirms in clear English. However, we now hear the diesels suddenly come to life as the ship starts surging forward.

"COMPUTER, STOP ENGINES!" Tyrah now calls as she rushes back to her panel.

"Voice authorization not recognized," the computer voice calmly replies.

"I don't have control!" Tyrah says, rapidly pressing a series of buttons on her panel while looking at a couple of her video monitors.

"Computer, all stop!" Spring now orders as well as he looks out the forward windows.

"Multiple voice commands," the computer voice now replies. "Input error One Three Three Zero."

The ship is now straining against her lines, her bow turning inwards towards the pier as we move forward a couple of metres. A degree of alarm ensues among a few dock workers on the pier, especially in front of us as a few of them are pointing down and waving us off, seemingly in an attempt to get our attention.

Tyrah picks up a phone at her console. "Motorrum!" she desperately says in the Bokmål of Outside Berkers. "Slå av motorene! Nødsituasjon manuell overstyring!"

Thankfully, the diesels below us now subside as the ship slowly drifts back to her original position against the pier.

"That it!" Spring sharply barks, almost marching over to the tech still working at his console in the alcove. "Default all systems to manual control! Add panels in here if necessary. Computers for data and assist only. No voice control! Understood?"

"Y-Yes, sir," the North American tech stammers. A tongue-lashing is always frightening—one given by a large, angry black dragon, even more so.

As things settle down, a sober-faced second officer comes onto the bridge.

"They are demanding to see the captain," he says, "down on the pier. Two dockworkers were on a float, between the ship and the pier, performing routine maintenance on the pilings and piping underneath. One was saved by a couple others of his team who pulled him clear just as the ship was moving. But the other has been crushed . . . by us."

A shocked and terribly quiet atmosphere now settles on the bridge as both ambulances and base security cars show up outside at the foot of the pier.

"I go," Spring decides, turning.

"You can't," Tyrah replies, reaching a hand to stop him.

"My command, my responsibility," he says, looking down. "Bring them inside tent aft."

"And my ship in port," she quietly counters. "Plus my urging you to do it. So it's my responsibility, especially if there are hearings ashore. You know you cannot appear in those, or give testimony."

"Tyrah . . ." Spring says, now giving her a genuine look of worry.

"I know," she accepts with a quiet resolve, almost as if she can read his mind. "But I go." She then turns to the panel once more, hitting a button as she picks up the phone, but then stops as she just closes her eyes.

"It done," Spring confirms, closing his eyes as well. "All dragons moving to Mission Space and hidden quarters. Ship's relevant spaces can be searched by Outsiders."

"Glad I didn't have to announce that with everyone around," Tyrah sighs, placing the phone back into its cradle, "even in Norse." She then turns and kneels down before Spring, taking his large head into both her hands. "It will be alright," she assures him.

Spring just sadly shakes his head though, looking at her once more.

"I'll go with Tyrah," I decide, looking at the two of them, "as head of state. Roana, call in Hope. I think she's still in Ottawa. Call Gunnar back, too. And get on a secure channel to inform the baroness and the Defence Ministry in Oslo as well. I think we may be here a while now."

Roana just silently nods her head.

— — — — —

As I then accompany her, Tyrah pauses at the quarters she shares with Spring, donning a silver necklace around her neck with a metallic badge, or 'dog tag' as American soldiers call it, bearing her military I.D. She then briefly pinches the somewhat thick tag before letting it fall against her neck within her khaki uniform shirt, giving me a nervous glance as she takes a deep breath.

I just nod.

Then, the minute she steps off the gangway onto Canadian soil, several security officers surround her. Probably as Spring sensed they would, they escort Tyrah off to detain her. "Just for questioning," they assure.

Base security know they can't touch me however, because of my diplomatic immunity as a head of state. "I'll go with her," I nonetheless offer to the officers.

"You can visit her, later," one officer says as he stops me. Tyrah looks remarkably calm, even focused though as the others lead her away.

I then compliantly return aboard the ship. Soon, Roana is meeting me in the bridge deck corridor. "Our dragons are hiding on the veranda," she tells me, "in case the authorities decide to search the captain's quarters. Spring is devastated though."

"I know," I assure my own mate as Roana and I take one another into a worried embrace. "But we'd better get down to the Alternate Comm Space amid the Forward Dragon Quarters."

One unique part of the training all our Berk officers and enlisted undergo is protecting the dragons from the Outside no matter what, developing the skill to think of and provide dragon-free explanations quickly in the event of any incident which might result in questioning by Outside authorities. Even as midshipmen, our Berk warriors are drilled over and over under at times harsh questioning, until providing convincing and mostly truthful explanations for anything that might happen becomes second nature among us. Even Roana and I underwent the training some years ago.

Tyrah knows she has the lead in developing our cover story however—a story the rest of us will have the responsibility of confirming. Soon Roana, myself, a couple Gerhard technicians who were on the bridge, and the ship's Communications Officer are down in a classified space amid the equally classified Forward Dragon Quarters, listening in on Tyrah's initial questioning via the micro transmitter hidden in her metal I.D. tag, which she should have no problem keeping on her person under military custom.

Roana and I are both looking at nothing in particular as we carefully listen to the accurate but dragon-free details Tyrah is providing Coast Guard and Naval investigators, as we even make notes on paper at times.

"They are wanting to see the rest of you as well," the Second Officer eventually interrupts at the doorway to our darkened space though, knowing where we are.

"Ready?" I sigh to my mate.

Roana just nods once more.

— — — — —

Days 17 through 22

We find ourselves caught amid a whirlwind of diplomatic, as well as naval, coast guard and even police activity.

All of us humans, even me, have been questioned several times by investigators, and the Drekar has been splashed across both the Canadian and international news media in ways that are giving the Barony fits. If they could fire me as chief, the baronial bureaucracy at least probably would.

You find out who your friends are in such situations though. The baroness, old as she is in her early nineties now, personally clamped down on her bureaucracy, ordering them to give us full support in Halifax—the best lawyers, money, anything we need. The king, equally as elderly, gave a rare public statement announcing his full support for us as well, even sending me a brief but powerful private message by secure email . . .

_Do not quit now._

Tyrah remains in detention ashore, in officers' quarters, but under guard and detention nonetheless, as Hope informs us that Canadian authorities are considering at least involuntary manslaughter charges.

"Gunnar and I are continuing negotiations," she tries to reassure us however.

Spring has seemingly been confined right along with Tyrah though, restricted to the veranda as investigators searched their quarters, as well as Roana's and mine, in a dragnet sweep trying to find anything that could be relevant to their inquiry. Outside Guardians from the Barony have fortunately gone ahead of them, ensuring that no trace of anything dragon could be found in the areas the coast guard and naval authorities searched, even changing our bedding and asking the dragons to sleep up in the veranda or in other hidden quarters below.

While the lower spaces have dragon toilets and washstands, even I wind up pitching in with the scooping up of dragon manure and hosing down the veranda up top that some of the dragons are confined in. We humans can come and go, but they're stuck inside those spaces twenty-four/seven right now, although they do rotate themselves up and down the interior ramps between the veranda and the Mission and Forward berthing spaces down below at night for the following day.

There have been more than a few firm exchanges, even brief shouting at times, as Oleg and the other Outside Guardians steadfastly do their jobs—restricting, deflecting and dissuading outside authorities from accessing any areas the dragons are hiding in, using every justification there could be.

Spring has fallen into a deep depression however, even trying to resign his naval commission more than once. I just firmly but lovingly decline on behalf of both myself and the king each time.

Wanting to remain clear of our problems, we lose our sub escort on the eighteenth day when the Pentagon in Washington recalls the Hawaii to Norfolk as soon as authorities in Halifax clear them to depart. While our NATO liaison officer had already left the Drekar according to schedule upon our arrival days ago, both NATO Supreme Commander Collins and Vice Admiral Tanner have agreed to leave Tanner's former aide with us, especially as we will be passing through American waters as we round Alaska en route to British Columbia. Saunderson and our new friends on the Hawaii haven't wanted to leave us amid our crisis, but they have no choice. Trying to lift our spirits however, Saunderson shows us the practice torpedo one more time, having it briefly hoisted out of their torpedo loading hatch just before they cast off.

"We are keeping this torpedo!" he calls from the casing or deck of his sub towards us, knowing Spring is up behind the veranda's grills. Sure enough, the practice torpedo now bears the painted crest of our dragon KJK unit on its side, complete with moniker and motto. "I've given standing orders that it always be kept and maintained on this ship as an exchange memento, and when she's decommissioned, this torpedo will be exchanged back to you!

"Stay strong!" are his final words to us a short time later from the conning tower as his sub is assisted away from their pier face by tugs. "And keep in touch!"

"We will!" I assure with a waive from the pier as Roana and I watch our new friends go.

Losing the Hawaii, Spring has wanted us to just return home to New Berk, using everything from, "World not safe," to, "Ship not reliable," and more as his excuses over an otherwise quiet dinner later in our quarters.

Roana tells me he is not alone. "Some of the other dragons want to return to the isolation of the past as well," she quietly shares in our bedding a few nights later at the end of the twenty-first day as our dragons, including Spring, sleep around us up on the veranda, the nighttime weather being warm. "They say things like, 'Outside can't be trusted.' But others maintain we have to press onward, and support you."

"All over a man whose funeral we couldn't attend," I note sadly.

"It was held off-base," she sighs as she rests her head against my bare shoulder once more, "and we couldn't leave. Even you couldn't leave the base until the first rounds of questioning were completed, and by then, it was too late. At least Hope represented us as our ambassador—Gunnar, too."

"The king said I shouldn't quit," I remark as I take Roana more tightly into my arms. "But I don't know anymore."

"You can't quit," she gently affirms to me. "None of us can. Something will break loose, and then we will go on. As you've said, we don't have a choice. Bottle us all up back on just New Berk? That's not happening. Okay?"

Sandwiched between Roana and Spring, I just try to relax for sleep against a thin pillow, lying on an even thinner camp mattress spread upon the veranda's enclosed steel deck within a military issue sleeping bag I share with my mate. This is feeling just like what I've read in the Journal about Hiccup and the search he ordered for a new home for our tribe. Only unlike he had, I was leading this search myself.

Fully half of me is wishing I had followed his example, staying behind and directing this from afar on New Berk while dealing with the normal busyness of my life there. But the rest of me knows things would likely be really falling apart by now, with the Drekar even heading back for Norway, if I wasn't here onboard.

Just calling a press conference, and showing the modern world that dragons exist is feeling sooo tempting though.

— — — — —

Day 23

A breakthrough has occurred, this very next morning. But it is a bittersweet one.

"Tyrah is to remain here at C.F.B. Halifax until a Coast Guard inquiry and hearings into the incident are completed," Hope reports to Roana, Rökkr, Substance, Spring and myself in person over breakfast back inside our quarters as preparations are being made to depart at last. "But the Drekar is free to go on your intended transit of the Northwest Passage, subject to putting in at another Canadian port if requested, until the proceedings are concluded.

"All charges have been dropped though," she assures. "The Coast Guard and Armed Forces Canada now simply want to compile an official and conclusive report as to what occurred. Gerhard Technologies is voluntarily providing them with data and voice logs as part of the deal. They're just dubbing Tyrah's voice in place of Spring's for the crucial commands, and making sure all other comments are scrubbed clean of Spring or any dragon references, while ensuring the time indexes synchronize. Their lead tech tells me it's the most complex task they've ever done, but Kaiju Bob has been helpful, even doubling back to Langley after enjoying only a weekend on New Berk, and making C.I.A. and N.S.A. resources available to us.

"Gerhard Technologies has also pre-emptively assumed full liability for the incident to deflect attention away from the Drekar and the Barony," she continues. "They've settled with the victim's relatives as he was single, and no lawsuits will be pressed."

It's a relief to be sure, but hardly any of us are really feeling better.

Then there is another knock at the door.

"Come," I invite, dressed in my now usual Outsider shirt and slacks for the day while Spring is still absorbing the news.

"I'll take my leave now, sirs," Oleg says, opening the door and stepping partly through it.

"You outrank me, Brigader," Spring reminds him though without breaking his almost constant downcast gaze at the floor or deck of our quarters.

"You were 'Young Master' to me once," Oleg warmly reminds my dragon son. "But you will always be 'Sir' as far as I am concerned. There is still much to be done ashore though. But the pilot is now aboard and on the bridge, and waiting for you, Captain."

"Me?" Spring wonders, finally looking up at him.

"We have fully vetted and cleared him," Oleg reports with satisfaction. "He is former Canadian Navy, already possessing a top secret clearance. He says he's looking forward to working with you, sir, having heard about us through another channel. He even contacted us, offering his services."

"Thank you, Oleg," I express on behalf of both Spring and myself, " . . . for everything."

"It's what we do," he accepts modestly, the strain showing somewhat in his face. "Even I wouldn't want you doing this alone."

I rise to my feet to shake his hand, even taking him into a grateful embrace.

"Smooth sailing, sirs," he says to both Spring and myself. "Go," he then smiles, "find us someplace new to protect and shield. My grandson will need a job before long."

I smile as well as he then leaves, shutting the door once more.

I sense though that Spring has not moved, which is confirmed as I turn to face him. My smile fades.

"You are fulfilling your obligations and vows to our family, our tribe and nation, and especially to this ship and your crew," I quietly say to my dragon son as I turn to take his epaulettes and strap from his locker. "You are captain of this vessel, and we will complete our intended mission."

He just numbly looks down once more.

"But," I continue, kneeling down before him, "I will be with you, every step of the way, until Tyrah is beside you again. I know what a hole it would tear in me, what hole I would even be deep inside of, if I had to leave Roana behind. You think I've been father to you before? Well, that will pale in comparison to the journey you and I will take together now, until Tyrah returns."

Spring just gives me a wordless nudge as tears fall from his eyes, while I proceed to tack him up in his simple naval uniform, extending and securing the broad, black strap with its gold-striped epaulettes across his shoulders as Tyrah had been doing for years.

"Just nudge me as you need to," I invite him as we exit our quarters while Roana, Rökkr and Substance follow behind us, given this first chance to be on the bridge for a departure from port.

"Captain and Chief on the bridge," a crewman announces in English for the benefit of our one guest as Spring and I enter the space. This time all crew are at their posts . . . except Tyrah. The Second Officer, Kapteinløytnant Ivar Jansen, is at the front panel, while next to Ivar, the pilot seems to be waiting for a reply on the radio, holding a radiotelephone handset to his ear as he looks out the large window in front of him.

"Drekar, Halifax Traffic," the bridge radio speakers crackle. "You are cleared for departure. Other than the ferries, no other expected incoming or crossing ships at this time, over."

"Thank you, Traffic," the pilot replies into the handset. "We should be departing momentarily. Drekar out."

"Halifax Traffic clear," a final reply comes as the pilot replaces the handset into its cradle at the right edge of the front panel, and both he and Ivar turn towards Spring and I.

"It is a pleasure to meet you, Captain," the aging pilot greets with a mild Maritime Canadian accent and an extended hand, "and Chief," he adds with a nod towards me.

I gladly shake his hand but Spring just quietly nods this time in response before assuming his station at the right side of the front panel, next to the pilot and looking out the large window in front of him.

"We've had a difficult few days here," I excuse to our guest. _But that is no excuse not to be polite,_ I mentally remind my dragon son as I glance towards him beside us.

"Of course," the pilot accepts, turning to face forward as well.

"Ready for departure, sir," Ivar notes, standing before the front panel.

There is a long and uncomfortable pause.

"Apologies," Spring finally says, breaking the silence. "Not feeling well today . . . at all. Mister Jansen, you take her out," he decides, now turning away.

"Spri—Captain," I quickly correct myself as I call to him.

"Drekar, Mobile One. Line crews standing by on pier," we all then hear a voice report over the bridge radio speakers . . . a very familiar and female voice. "Kommandørkaptein Ýsa, respond please, over."

That voice stops Spring in his tracks as he turns his head.

"I know you're there, Spring," the voice soothingly adds, "because I'm the one who found a pilot who could work beside you. It gave me something constructive to do during my free time here between interviews."

Spring now turns, moving over to the port side of the bridge. "Decrease window polarization fifty percent," he directs.

"Captain," Ivar cautions as his hand hesitates over a button on the front panel, "I am not sure that is a good idea."

"Do it," Spring quietly orders.

All the outward-angled bridge windows around us then lighten to a degree. Spring continues to gaze steadily through the large single pane at the left side of the bridge. As I move next to him, I am hoping that all but the whites of his eyes still blend in with the partly obscured bridge when viewed from the pier.

"Go on," we now both see and hear Tyrah radio from the dock. Hope, Gunnar and Jana are standing either side of her as Tyrah gives a slow single wave to Spring. "I will be right behind you."

"Single up fore and aft on spring lines," my dragon son now directs with a tear in his eye but a subtle dragon smile upon his lips as a bridge talker repeats his order in Bokmål over the PA to the deck crews.

Soon, lines of white nylon rope are going slack at the Drekar's bow and stern as dock crews lift them off large iron bollards on the pier. They kindly hold the looped ends or 'eyes' until our deck crews take in the slack, keeping the lines from getting wet in the seawater below us.

"Release spring lines," my son directs as the bridge talker repeats his instructions once more. "Walk her out Mister Jansen," Spring then orders. "Starboard back Two, Port ahead Two. Helm hard left."

"Starboard back Two, Port ahead Two," Ivar replies, spreading the twin engine levers somewhat apart.

"Helm hard left," the young woman standing at the helm reports as well.

The final two lines are slackened. Tyrah is handling the forward spring line herself. As she releases the final line, the ship begins to slowly move sideways from the pier.

"Shift colours," Spring directs, ordering the Berker standard at our stern lowered while the one at our mainmast is raised astern of the Norwegian ensign—a common practice among all naval and government vessels.

"Nice handling," the pilot quietly observes, seemingly to himself as the ship moves slowly sideways from the pier while remaining parallel to it.

"All stop. Helm amidships," Spring directs.

"All stop," Ivar confirms as he brings the engine throttles together once more.

"Helm amidships," the helmswoman reports as well.

"Ship is yours, Captain," my dragon son then notes, temporarily transferring command to the pilot for the duration of our trip out of the harbour. "Mobile radio on VOX please, Mister Jansen," he adds though.

"Sound departure, followed by the manoeuvring astern warning," the pilot quickly adds though as he moves to the enclosed starboard side of the bridge and looks aft across the harbour.

Ivar is suddenly busy complying with the overlapping commands as he presses one large red button on the panel, causing the ship's five mid-ranged horns mounted on the single mast above us to sound their harmonious notes in a long blast, soon followed by three short ones.

"Engines, all back One Third," the pilot then orders, using an old school naval command.

"Engines all back One Third," Ivar replies, pulling the twin engine levers back.

"Outer water jets also steer ship," Spring notes to the pilot as both now look aft from their respective sides of the bridge. "Clear port," he adds.

"Thank you, Captain, for both," the pilot acknowledges.

"Mobile radio on VOX," Ivar chimes in.

"Mute VOX for moment," Spring replies, putting duty before personal interest as he continues looking steadily out the aft windows of the bridge's port side.

With the Drekar smoothly backing away from the pier and our bow now well clear of its end, "Starboard ahead One Third," the pilot directs. "Standard left rudder."

"Starboard ahead One Third . . . Standard left rudder," the replies come back from Ivar and the helmswoman respectively as the Drekar now pivots towards the open sea several miles away down the harbour. Both the pilot and Spring now turn to face forward as the ship's backwards progress slows to a stop.

"All ahead One Third, rudder amidships," the pilot now orders as a phalanx of security zodiacs with their blue flashing strobe lights once more take up station around us to escort the Drekar through the harbour.

"Un-mute VOX," Spring now orders as he moves across the bridge on his four black legs.

"VOX on," Ivar replies.

"Ýsa to Mobile One, over," he now says, gazing out the starboard bridge window this time.

"Kristiansen-Ýsa here, over," the voice softly replies on all bridge speakers. For their sake, I wish Spring and Tyrah could have a more private conversation, but that doesn't seem possible right now.

"You know how I feel about you," Spring nonetheless says as the two of them share a final gaze while the ship begins to move forward past the pier's end now.

"I know," comes the gentle reply.

"I . . ." Spring begins, but then hesitates.

"I know that, too," comes the warm acknowledgement.

"I love you," Spring says anyway as the pier begins to fall astern, his gaze remaining fixed upon it.

"Now that takes courage," the voice smiles, as all the rest of us can't help smiling as well . . . except for the pilot, who gives Spring a curious sideways glance while pretending to remain focused on his job and the course ahead. "I love you, too," Tyrah replies, "and I will rejoin you, very soon. Be strong for me, and sense my thoughts, anytime you like."

"I will," Spring pledges, now looking through the aft bridge windows as the pier recedes behind us. "Protect yourself . . . until I can once more."

"You, too," comes the reply. "Tyrah out."

"Spring out," my dragon son quietly echoes, finally breaking his gaze on the pier as he lowers his large head.

Realizing that he has likely never been apart from Tyrah like this since they bonded together as companions years ago now, I move next to my son. Being a dragon, Spring is likely every bit as heartsick now as Altaff once was upon truly parting from his companion. Even though they will soon be reunited, this is perhaps worse as Tyrah and Spring consider themselves soulmates as well. I can see my dragon son struggling through it all as I gently lay a hand upon his large left shoulder.

"Let's get us out to sea," I quietly encourage as I kneel down beside him, "and then just have an early dinner."

Staring vacantly in front of him as another tear leaks from his large right eye, Spring just quietly nods. He then takes a deep breath, looking with longing back towards that pier, before turning around once more to face the ship's bow, and our course ahead.

I remain standing right beside Spring on the starboard side of the bridge as he maintains a gentle contact between his shoulder and my hip.

"She still watching me, us," Spring quietly notes, sensing Tyrah's thoughts.

"Hope, even Gunnar, are with her, just as I am with you," I assure. "And as chief and head of our family, I am prescribing nightly phone calls, or at least emails between you two for now. I can be pretty handy with dictation as well, you know."

"Dragons . . ." he starts to say, his voice breaking though.

" . . . Are supposed to feel just like you are," I assure, kneeling down beside him once more as I extend my arm around his thick neck.

"Father . . ." he whispers, allowing his pain to come through as he shuts his eyes.

"The bond between dragon and human companions can be close," I hear Roana quietly explain to the pilot near us. "One of his kind even committed suicide over a rejection and separation a hundred years ago. It has become one of our tribe's most sacred stories and legends."

"Captain," Spring and I then hear the pilot say, "I could use a second experienced set of eyes. We have both port and marina cross-traffic coming up."

"Of course," Spring replies, now looking forward and straightening himself up. "Tug with barge on hip departing from pier ahead to starboard," he then notes, even though I can't see it yet.

Sure enough, the bridge radio speakers crackle, "Halifax Traffic, Tug Ocean Rover with fuel barge on hip, requesting departure clearance from Pier Twenty-Four. Destination Ultramar Oil Wharves, over."

"Ocean Rover, Halifax Traffic," the reply comes back. "Give way to Berk Patrol Ship Drekar, length one hundred, eighteen metres, outbound with security escort from C.F.B. Halifax, currently approaching your position. You are cleared to proceed once they pass, over."

"Copy, Traffic. Ocean Rover out."

"Halifax Traffic clear."

"How did you know?" the pilot then asks, turning towards Spring, while continuing to glance at the tug and barge beginning to emerge from behind the Halifax cruise terminal in the distance ahead of us on the right.

"Classified," Spring simply replies.

My dragon son seems to be regaining his stride now as I lay a reassuring hand on his neck once more.

— — — — —

Before long, we are clearing the mouth of Halifax Harbour and the security zodiacs turn away as we re-enter the open Atlantic Ocean. The Drekar begins to gently sway and surge once more amid the swells that surround us.

"Pilot boat approaching, port side," a bridge lookout reports, glancing towards our stern.

"Steady on course One One Zero, reduce speed to twelve knots," the pilot directs. "The ship is yours again, Captain," he then says, turning to Spring. "You have a fine ship and a fascinating journey ahead of you—one I've always wanted to experience, but haven't yet. I was just flown between ocean assignments while in the Navy. You also have an unforgettable crew, and a very persuasive first officer," he smiles.

"She is that," Spring agrees.

"Wish I could go with you all," the pilot sighs, glancing ahead once more. "But this is a work week for me. Now it's a couple hours being tossed about on that pilot boat until my next ship shows up."

"I feel we come this way again," Spring assures. "Give us your card. We call ahead for you. I prefer being on bridge myself going in and out of port."

"Sure," the pilot replies, pulling a business card out from within his day glow orange float coat.

"I'll accept that for him," I graciously intercede on behalf of Spring.

"My cards under left epaulette," Spring notes as he gazes ahead out the bridge windows.

"They gave you business cards?" I openly wonder as I nonetheless reach for them, finding the cards in a small black pocket hidden beneath his left epaulette.

"Need them in dealing with Outside," my dragon son replies. "Just has email and cell number though. Tyrah answers both cell and email for me as personal aide. Even still has phone with her."

Deciding to take two cards out of his epaulette pocket, one for myself—sure enough they say . . .

KOMMANDØRKAPTEIN SPRING ÝSA  
>Den Kongelige Norske Marine<p>

. . . along with his phone number and email at the bottom left and right corners (sorry, but I don't want to give those out in this narrative.)

"How many of these are on the Outside?" I query, still looking at it.

"Ordered five hundred," he replies. "Don't know how many Tyrah has handed out so far."

"Do the Outside Guardians know about this? Do any other dragons have business cards?" I then ask in quick succession.

"Only Árvekni, as ship department head and K.J.K. dragon unit commander," Spring replies, still looking ahead out the window. "Gunnar and baroness overrule Outside Guardian objections at Tyrah's request. Árvekni's human X.O. handle his calls and email, too. Privilege of command, and no Outsider tell difference. Árvekni even adopt X.O.'s surname of Erikssen as cover for time being. Confusing at times, but works."

"Is there anything else I haven't been told of that I should know about?" I sigh as I finally pass the now bemused pilot one of Spring's business cards.

"Your head might explode," Spring cautions, finally glancing towards me, using an all too human piece of slang he must have picked up on the Outside. "But we have plenty of time on voyage to British Columbia," he then assures as the pilot bids us adieu and follows Ivar off the bridge.

— — — — —

Soon, Roana, Rökkr and Substance have gone to our quarters for an afternoon nap and Spring has ordered the Drekar secured for sea as a new bridge watch takes over. I note with interest that the Nighmare, Løytnant Skelfa, is apparently the officer of this watch as he takes up the position to the right of the panel Spring previously occupied as his human companion mans the front bridge panel.

"Let's see what's for dinner," I suggest to my dragon son as we turn to leave, "even perhaps pick it up for the rest of our family."

We find ourselves having to carefully step around Skelfa's long, crested tail as we exit. He thoughtfully moves it aside for us however without Spring or I having to say a thing.

"Skelfa only really speak Dragon," Spring quietly notes to me once we're off the bridge. "He understand Norse, Bokmål, English, but his human languages very rough. Trouble shaping his lips amid all those protruding teeth. Don't need to worry about that with Dragon though, as it guttural language."

"I have the same problem with Dragon because it _is_ a guttural language," I sigh. "I can't shape my throat very well."

"You have tried," my dragon son consoles as we turn and start walking down the ramp towards the mess area. "But I can't make peace sign, or order two drinks in loud pub."

"When have you been in a pub?" I now wonder, stopping him halfway down the ramp.

"Skelfa know navigation, ship routines," Spring tries to deflect.

"No," I maintain as we stand halfway between decks. "When have you been in a pub?"

"It one thing that make your head explode," he now sighs, looking away. "My graduating midshipman class insist we all celebrate. Say that if everyone else drunk enough, no one realize I'm there, other than as dismissible hallucination. So, using Barony credit cards given as spending allowances to Island Berker midshipmen, human classmates buy enough rounds of drink for everyone at isolated pub in countryside near school first. Then, they mind-call me in. They drug bartender and two servers with syringes, and we run pub ourselves for while, celebrating. Tyrah in on it of course, and we include generous tip on our tab for pub, leaving everyone passed out and sleeping."

"And neither the Barony nor your school staff noticed?" I wonder.

"Spread bill across several credit cards over two different dates, since we go past midnight," he replies. "We tell school we go off, celebrate graduation in woods, bring our own booze, which human classmates say they buy at pub. So Barony pays bills without objection. No one begrudge us, ask questions, even at pub next day when Tyrah went back and checked as our secret Outside Guardian to cover tracks if necessary. Passing herself as a customer from last night who lose glasses at pub, she talk with staff and report night staff not say anything about falling asleep on job, and owner very happy with previous night's receipts."

"She is better at being an operative than I thought," I begin to admire.

"We could have no better," Spring quietly agrees. "But it worked," my grown dragon son, a full captain in his own right, cautiously smiles to me.

"Did you get drunk?" I ask, strenuously resisting cracking a smile now.

"I had one bucket of beer," my son replies, "and Tyrah tip couple stiff drinks in my mouth. But someone had to watch out for everyone else, so I be designated guardian. One Outsider came in late around midnight. I send Tyrah to partly drug him as he stood there, shocked at seeing me, and hand him drink on spot. Got him into festive spirit. He happy as anyone within minutes, even around me."

"You know how many protocols that violated?" I quietly sigh.

"It sixteen years ago, Dad," Spring smiles. "Everyone involved are senior officers now, here on Drekar, and on New Berk and Dragon Island. As I warn, your head explode."

I just stand there on the ramp for a moment longer, stupefied as a human crewman walks up the ramp past both of us. "So . . . did humans ever have problems adjusting to dragons in command?" I then ask, changing the subject as cover while trying to regain my equilibrium once more, and allowing us to finally continue down the enclosed ramp.

My dragon son now genuinely smiles at me. At least I am amusing him for a moment.

"You never do such things, did you?" Spring now quietly perceives as we emerge at the bottom of the ramp at the edge of a fairly busy mess and lounge area.

"I wanted to," I admit, unable to keep from smiling myself now. "You know," I then sigh, glancing at him, "I'm actually envious of you."

"I know, Dad," he warmly replies before his expression suddenly seems to change. "But dragons and Riders set example for Outside Berkers," he then swiftly deflects, answering my previous question as one of the Outside Guardians assigned to travel with the Drekar passes in front of us among the three forward entrances to the ship's mess area. I don't recognize the young, buzz-cut, brown haired man as such, but fortunately Spring does. They're not bad or menacing like the Soviet KGB or East German Stasi were once reputed to be—but our Outside Guardians are a by-the-book sort within modern Berker society. They basically have to be in that line of work. Both Spring and I know it's just best not to mention violations of protocol, even pranks, around them. Fortunately there are no mind-reading dragons among the ranks of Outside Guardians, and dragons would likely have more of a forgiving sense of humour anyway—even my once intimidating elder, the previous Árvekni.

"Riders have to trust dragons who fly them," my dragon son continues though. "That same mindset taught to Outside Berkers during screening and academy training. We dragons are your wings and enhanced senses, and you humans are our hands and equal minds. It perfect combination, symbiosis. When presented that way, Outside Berkers accept. Any who don't, wash out. Dragons natural unit or watch commanders because we can't hold or do things like humans can. We also see and sense more."

"So we humans are becoming second fiddles to you dragons?" I wonder, getting back into the stride of acceptable normalcy and accepted conversation among us, especially as this young Outside Guardian seems to unfortunately still be lingering within earshot of Spring and I in the mess area. "Perhaps destined to call you all 'sir' or 'm'am' centuries or millennia from now?" I add.

"Please . . ." Spring sighs with a roll of his eyes. "But if you want us to do more than fly and supervise, help us figure out how we can handle ropes, hold tools, turn wheels, or push multiple buttons. If you had these for hands," he adds, holding up his thick right paw towards me, "you still be naked, living in caves, too."

"True," I admit. "But speaking of flying, and your schooling," I then knowingly smile, "I can't really remember us having a father-son flight, before you took off for the mainland ages ago. By the time I came to visit you weeks, even months later, you were already taking your fellow inductees, even Tyrah, on flights."

"You not want dinner first?" he wonders.

"Exercise is always best done on an empty stomach," I decide, even though the dinner being set up at the galley serving counter is looking and smelling good.

"Yes sir," my dragon son compliantly agrees with a sigh, but a smile.

"That's more like it," I smile myself as we walk onwards into the hangar instead. "But we forgot your saddle," I note, looking down at his broad shoulders with just his epaulettes strapped across them.

"Haven't had one in years," he replies as we continue heading for the hangar's open doorway to the landing platform. "Tyrah and I prefer it that way."

"Just don't drop me," I sigh as I mount and straddle his epaulettes.

"Dad . . ." Spring whines, as any grown son might, before stretching his large, black wings either side behind me and vaulting us both into the sky almost right from the doorway.

To be airborne on a dragon again . . . it feels so natural to me now, so much like home.

"Haven't done this since the day we arrived," I note to my son as he takes us both on a wide, lazy circle above and around the Drekar while she steams steadily onward below.

"Have you beat," he replies. "I haven't flown since ship called at Stavanger, before picking you up. Need this even more than you do."

"Should I be concerned over your lack of exercise?" I query my son.

"Should you ever doubt a dragon? Especially family?" he queries right back.

"Point taken," I concede as I vaguely hear an alarm on the ship below us. Spring doesn't seem the slightest bit concerned though as I look down to see other Dragons and Riders taking off from both the landing platform and even the opened Mission Space portals at the ship's stern and starboard quarter. "No flying solo, eh?" I then note.

"You chief, I captain," he replies. "Couldn't waive them off, even if I want to. Besides, they need fresh air and exercise, too, especially after extended stay in Halifax."

Soon, Árvekni is flying up beside us with his US Navy lieutenant on his long neck. "So you're the reason we were scrambled," the lieutenant notes. "I was just settling into a good pork chop with au gratin potatoes."

"Sorry," I shrug in apology.

"Good drill," Spring adds beneath me. "Guardians must always be vigilant, ready—even during supper.

"We still within range," my dragon son then quietly murmurs to me.

"In range?" I wonder.

"Of Tyrah," he clarifies, practically sighing with the wistfulness of a lovesick teenager. "It even getting dark," he adds, turning us until we are pointed towards Halifax.

"You would never be able to chase this ship back down once you got there," I caution.

"Could always order it to slow, even circle," he reminds me.

"Alright," I openly decide, all but folding my arms as I continue to grip his epaulette strap, "captain's discretion."

Spring then banks away however, resuming his broad circle over and around the ship as she steams onwards.

"You would say that," he grumbles beneath me.

"Okay, to make it fair," I offer, "I could ask Roana to go keep Tyrah company. Cousin Gunnar would actually be grateful, as he and his wife could resume their vacation. I know Roana would do it, even flying there on Rökkr tonight. You and I could even go with them."

Spring pauses, thinking for a moment as our circling continues. "No, but thanks," he finally decides. "Temptation would be too much, parting too painful. Tyrah be disappointed . . . glad, but disappointed in me. And you should not suffer as I am."

"I'm not a dragon," I note.

"You feel like one," he replies, "if mom were gone."

"She's been gone before at times," I gently assure. "You hurting that much though?" I then quietly wonder as Árvekni and his lieutenant now give us some distance.

"I am a dragon," he simply replies. "Separation—it is hell to us, to bonded dragons, far more than humans know. If Asger knew, felt . . . he could not do what he did."

I then place my left hand squarely on top of my dragon son's head. _Altaff,_ I then silently pray directly, closing my eyes and knowing Spring can fully sense my thoughts, _help my son. Give him the comfort, the assurance you needed so much. And_ _make me the companion my son needs for now._

My dragon son then turns us northeast, paralleling the Nova Scotia coastline and silently pacing the Drekar below us with the gentlest flaps of his wings as we begin the next leg of our journey and quest.

"But that pub isn't the only Outside foray you've had, is it?" I then quietly surmise to him.

"Dad . . ." Spring whines again beneath me.


	53. Chapter 53

_While I'm a respecter of canon, having worked to accurately base this saga on the first How to Train Your Dragon film, and later tweaking it to keep up with the subsequent TV series—I find I cannot further adapt the first and second stories of this trilogy to keep up with the changes presented in the film, How to Train Your Dragon 2 (and I am not spoiling what those are!)_

_So I'm basically having to accept the 'AU' mantle for this entire trilogy. It's something I had hoped not to have to do, originally wanting to incorporate the entire film trilogy by reference, along with first two books of this trilogy, as 'The Journal' that is mentioned in this third story. Now though, I can really only incorporate the first film._

_I have to remind even myself that stories and even events can be recounted in multiple ways. DRAGONS Live (for those of us lucky enough to have seen it) itself differs in some ways from the first HTTYD film in telling the same story, yet both are engaging. There are even four versions of what is supposed to be the same Christian Gospel, each differing from one another in some details as well. At one point, I had contemplated re-titling this entire saga to reflect the more independent course it now takes from the HTTYD film franchise as of the second motion picture. But reader EyesWideOpen2010 convinced me that 'Taming a Heart' still does just fine as the title for this saga._

_At the same time though, I am grateful for the most recent posted reviews by Tagesh, Solar, Poblock Starwalker, DaMonkMan, Vosievosloo, and OinkyThePiggy, as well as a wonderfully detailed review from long-time reader, Katielp2693, who has once again reminded Lance and I of some aspects of this story we have perhaps been neglecting, just a little._

_So enjoy a chapter here that is slightly longer than usual, which contains not only heart and adventure, but some actual Norse and North American history, and even a hard-to-find script excerpt, courtesy of IMDb, from a classic TV series that the Ýsas can readily identify with._

— _Norwesterner_

* * *

><p>Day 25<p>

Today the Drekar pauses, anchoring off L'Anse aux Meadows at the northern tip of the Isle of Newfoundland to see and honour a legacy of our fellow Norse. Led by Leif Erikson, a band of Christianised Norse had voyaged across from an already remote settlement at Greenland in about 1000 AD, establishing a settlement here. Warring with the local indigenous peoples however, and unable to adequately farm or get resupplied from Greenland, with even Leif leaving after just one winter, the settlement only lasted a few years before the rest of them basically packed up and left as well. Now a national park and even a UN World Heritage site, I had arranged with our Outside Guardians and Armed Forces Canada while we had been delayed in Halifax to have this park and a surrounding zone both onshore and off closed and cleared for the day, so that our crew, both dragon and human, could come ashore and see the legacies, even if somewhat recreated, of another ancient Norse people and settlement that dates from around the same time as Old Berk—even New Berk originally for that matter.

"Too bad they weren't our tribe," Spring quips as we walk among the replica sod houses that are both similar yet different from our own Berker homes, after having seen the semi-excavated foundations of some original settlement buildings nearby. While having tall, grass-covered roofs like ours at New Berk, with beam interiors and wooden furnishings that look similar as well—these houses have tiny doorways that even we humans have trouble getting through without crouching. The dragons can only poke their heads in for a look, if that.

"Be nice if we could lay claim to it through ancestry though," he decides as we gaze once more around this village that is set on a low, grassy plain near the beach under a fortunately sunny sky. "This would be decent spot for settlement."

"I don't think Canada would quite accept that," I smile. "Besides, Outsider neighbours are a little too close, just beyond the park boundary. There's even a tourist centre and small cruise ship wharf only a kilometre away to the east on this small peninsula—that we've had closed for the day—as well as a town or two nearby, which is why we have to fly in low here as it is."

"Outside neighbours enjoying our food," my dragon son notes, glancing towards the generous barbecue spread we have laid out in a park picnic area nearby as both our crew and these invited guests partake.

"But we'll be drugging them as we leave," I sigh.

"It time we start doing things way you want," my dragon son suggests next to me. "Let's start making lasting friends, like Hawaii's crew—not as we have with Outsider rescues and other encounters at times, making friends and then erasing them. I so tired of that."

"We make lasting Outsider friends with Old Berk Historic Park," I note, "even fans."

"But they not know us dragons as real there," my son quietly laments. "They think us cleverly done theatrics during evening shows."

"There would need to be some loyalty that would tie such Outsiders with us," I ponder. "We had no choice but to invite and welcome these neighbours today as they couldn't just be cleared from their houses under any credible government edict—even though there are roadblocks beyond closing this area for a diplomatic reception with the Barony. Plus they could see us from their windows. But any truthful stories they might tell would doubtless conflict with the official stories and carefully shot photos and video the Outside Guardians will be releasing to the press from this later. So even I am forced to agree that these few Outsider guests will have to be drugged."

To my surprise, my dragon son then just spreads his wings and takes off without me, back towards our ship offshore.

"Everything okay?" Roana wonders aloud, coming up from behind.

"I know what's eating him," I sigh as we both watch him go.

"Lannce," I hear a familiar deep voice say behind us, "take me to him. No son of ours should act like this."

"I understand his pain though," I say as Substance comes up beside me while Rökkr reassumes his customary station at Roana's side. "I think he needs time to work through it."

"What if we were attacked now?" she poses. "Where is he as Guardian? Leaders lead from front."

"So his feelings come second?" I wonder.

"Duty always comes first with dragon. Duty is greatest love we give," Substance answers. "He becoming too human. Forget who and what he is."

"That's not how you've always played it," I note.

"That's why we go," she replies. "Because we want him to be better than we have been."

I glance aside at Rökkr who is just steadily gazing out across the water at Spring as he lands back onboard the Drekar offshore. "Well," I sigh, "we can't have the entire leadership bailing on our own party. Roana, Rökkr, stay here please."

I climb aboard Substance as she vaults us off low across the water. Within a moment, I am landing us back onboard the Drekar's flight deck.

"He heading for quarters," my dragon companion says as I dismount.

"Substance . . ." I sigh with misgiving once more.

"You want him human, or dragon?" she asks as her vacant eyes face into the open hangar before us.

"I want him to be the best of both," I answer. "You've had a hand in raising him, but I'm the one who adopted him into our family."

I regret those words as soon as I say them.

"Substance . . . I apologise," I now say.

"Spring only dragon child I have," she replies with a wounded voice, "even if he not mine."

"Shouldn't we allow our son a chance to deal with his pain?" I ask. "Not just bury it beneath duty, even if it is a form of love?"

"Remind me to tell you Confession of Altaff sometime," she says, seeming to straighten herself up now. "If Guardian of Memories had done more than just let him deal with his pain back then, adopt mindset he did, Altaff might have lived. It demon in our dragon natures, curse of our commitment with you."

"Lead the way," I reluctantly concede with a sweep of my hand into the hangar.

"If ship was living, I would," Substance replies without moving. "But I not sense metal and plastic with my mind. Might if I made it all hot enough though. Heat one energy we can sense without eyes."

"Sorry again," I say as I began to lead the way for us. "I'm just screwing up all over the place this afternoon."

"To err is human," she responds, pulling up a quote we're both very familiar with—one that seems to be a favourite of hers at moments like this.

Soon, we are walking up the inclined ramp to the bridge deck. "He blocking me," my dragon senses. "Let me speak," she requests as we emerge into the bridge deck corridor, turning aft towards our quarters.

"Captain," she says as we stop outside his door. "Your crew, and guests, need you. You their Guardian, their leader, even their Chief—a duty that cannot be shed, no matter how you hurt.

"You . . . my son," she then slowly says, lowering her head.

For some reason, that gets him to open the door between the three of us.

"Sorry I hurt you," Spring apologises to Substance, his head lowered in regret.

I am just confused at this point.

"As parent, as child," he then notes, seeming to quote a dragon axiom in explanation to me, and in remembrance to her. "My failing remind you of yours."

"Yes," Substance simply replies, gazing down vacantly. "I behave shamefully when I lose Amund. You not of my flesh, but you start down exact same path. That why I come. You open that door far enough, you wreck, lose everything . . . career, your father's hopes, my wishes for you. Outsiders do not understand, forgive, or give second chances as we do."

"So stupid," my dragon son sniffs, shaking his head. "I know Tyrah will return, but . . ."

"You feel the pain of separation that dragons not equipped to deal with," Substance replies. "We hive, communal beings by instinct. Our selves feel bound up in those we with, those we love. Among our kind, we never alone, even when loved ones die. Our inner selves spread widely among others in caves. With humans though, bonds are more concentrated within small family, even with just one. We experience solitude when we lose human companions. Solitude lead down dark, destructive paths for us. But that you opened this door instead of that other one further, that was smart."

"I opened this door, because your regrets reopened," Spring says.

Suddenly, I realize I am seeing deeply inside an aspect of dragon culture, even their mindset, that they normally keep to themselves. And they are playing it all out in English, instead of grunting it in Dragon . . . for me!

"You want me to give you both a moment, alone?" I wonder.

"No, Dad," my son says, seeming to feel better. "Mom and I," he continues with pride, " . . . we want you to be dragon, one, with us. We want you to understand, to hear and know."

"There are times," I find myself admitting, "that I wish I was one of you . . . had your powers and abilities . . . at least understood your language better than I do."

"Why you think we keep talking in yours?" Substance almost tearfully smiles.

The three of us nudge one another's snouts as I extend my arms around both their large heads. The two dragons soon break off though as another presence is sensed.

"Oh," I say looking up to see a young, blonde female løytnant waiting to pass in the corridor. "Excuse us," I apologise as I rise to my feet.

"It is perfectly alright, sirs and m'am," she smiles, before squeezing behind Substance and I as she makes her way to the bridge.

"Well," I then sigh to the two most important dragons in my life, "are we good to go back to the party we're supposed to be hosting?"

Spring and Substance just nod.

Family can be such hard work at times, but it's so satisfying.

— — — — —

The three of us return to L'Anse aux Meadows to enjoy a fairly un-Viking barbecue dinner, due in no small part to local fishing moratoriums still in place from past depletions of fish stocks. I decide to make more of an effort though to connect Spring more socially with the crew he commands on the Drekar, his 'hive' perhaps—recalling from literature and elsewhere that ship captains can all too often be isolated from their crews.

"Anuun," our dark-haired US Navy lieutenant introduces as he and I sit on the grass as part of a circle, sharing a couple large platters of barbecue spare ribs while Spring, Substance, Roana, Rökkr and even Árvekni share them with us, along with Maggie and Rachael, a couple of older local Outsider neighbours we've invited to join us. "That's my real Iñupiat first name. It means, 'Man with the hammer.'"

"Tor or Thor!" I reply. "That's our 'Man with the hammer,' a god, really."

"I know," he smiles amid another sauce-slathered bite of his spare rib, while the dragons just seem to be swallowing theirs, bones and all from their large plates. "That's what the rest of the KJK are already nicknaming me. My parents also gave me 'Raymond' or 'Ray' as basically an Outsider name though. 'Said they were listening to Ray Charles at the time when I was a baby."

"But you have just Kleluk as your surname, right? And where are the Iñupiat?"

"Just Kleluk," he confirms. "But the Iñupiat are a branch of the Inuit—what you Outsiders sometimes think of as Eskimos."

"Careful," I warn, "we do _not_ consider ourselves Outsiders. That is sometimes almost a derisive term for most anyone outside our nation among us Berkers."

"Sorry, got it," he readily accepts. "But the Iñupiat live across northern and western Alaska."

"A fellow man of the North," I smile. "Thor does truly fit you."

"Annnuuuunn," Árvekni chimes in, seeming to correct me.

"Well, you're getting Árvekni to talk," I observe with a smile to our lieutenant. "He normally seems to be a dragon of very few words."

"Hadd to earnn it withh mmee," the almost inscrutable KJK Night Fury commander replies, wearing his rider's saddle and officer's epaulets. "Nnot wannt to make things too easy on himm," he notes as we all laugh, even Spring.

Through the evening we also enjoy surprisingly good conversations with the local neighbours we are temporarily revealing ourselves to. Talking with Maggie, Rachael and other mostly older and life-long Newfoundlanders or 'Newfies' as they're nicknamed, I do come to feel we and our dragons could live right next to them with no problem at all . . . if it weren't for the other Outsiders from the rest of Canada and the world who routinely come to visit this historic place. But given that the provincial government here has been encouraging the wholesale abandonment or relocation of a number of remote coastal villages on both Newfoundland and adjacent Labrador over the years, in the name of saving taxpayer monies—requesting an isolated and abandoned village for us to take over is something I will keep in the back of my mind as an option.

Later though after sunset, our Outsider guests are pleasantly escorted back to their homes and even drugged with their consent, surprisingly thankful for their afternoon encounter with us and our dragons. Substance is outside waiting for me on the porch while I reluctantly drug Maggie, who is comfortably situated in her living room armchair inside her white, two storey home as I think of Spring and his simple wish to make lasting friends on the Outside.

"I will see you all again in Heaven," the older woman says with her Maritime accent, "where there be no need for secrets at all."

"I would like it to be before then," I reply, depressing the plunger of the syringe with more than a little bitterness at the situation myself now.

— — — — —

Day 26

Spring and I end up spending basically the whole day on the bridge. We occupy goodly amounts of time carefully examining electronic chart displays on a wall monitor within the chartroom alcove to the rear of the bridge, on the opposite side of the access corridor from the CIC alcove where the Comm and Sonar stations are. Cross-referencing candidate villages against government abandonment data, as well as news and other sources via satellite internet, we then examine coastlines from the glass-enclosed port wing of the bridge with equal intensity, scouting abandoned villages along the Labrador coast as we pass them.

"This look even better than L'Anse aux Meadows," Spring notes as we have the ship slow while we pass one seemingly empty village. "Trees, no neighbours or even roads. Houses, net sheds we could adapt . . ."

"Virtually ready to move in," I agree. "There are still a couple people living there however," I caution, calling up a data search of the village on an electronic tablet.

"Just friends we haven't made yet," he replies. "But you say British Columbia better than this?"

"The fish stocks are healthier there for starters," I note as the village begins to pass out of view behind a rocky and tree-fringed point. "But there are many more archipelagos and channels for us to hide among out west there. As you can see here, most of these villages are open to the Atlantic. We'd have to do a lot more ducking and hiding with passing ships here."

"I like village though," he says as we watch it fully disappear behind us.

"Alright," I smile. "We'll bookmark it."

By day's end, we are somewhere off the northern Labrador coast . . . and finally off the bridge.

A light-toned palomino horse tosses a ring onto a stake embedded into a lawn on a black and white screen.

"Good throw, Ed!" a dark-haired man in a cardigan sweater praises next to him, going to fetch the ring. "I bet you're also good at pitching horseshoes!"

"No, Wilbur," the horse replies, "I don't play horseshoes."

"Really? Why not?" the man wonders.

"Because Mom always taught us kids not to throw our clothes around," the horse answers amid an audience laugh track.

"You know," I remark with a smile to Spring beside me—well around me really as I lean back against him in the darkened cabin, "even though I have seen these Mister Ed episodes as a kid, they're funnier than I remember."

"Tyrah grew up watching them on re-runs, even video," my dragon son notes as we both watch the flat screen mounted on a bulkhead. "Says they helped her learn English while watching her favourite thing back then—horses. Had me start watching them with her years ago, trying to teach me humour. Said I took things too serious."

"This is a very apt TV series for us though," I note. "There are a lot of parallels with our situation that Mister Ed and Wilbur have to deal with in keeping Ed's abilities hidden. Maybe we ought to get the Barony to somehow convince Norwegian NRK to do an updated version of this comedy series with a Berker human and dragon trying to live at a farm on the Outside, only the dragon would speak for itself, even while being dismissible as being voiced by an actor."

"Talking horse can hide living Outside, but dragon, talking or not, can't," my son replies. "Mister Ed bad companion though," Spring adds as the show continues. "Constantly getting his human in trouble."

"That's much of what comedy is, Spring," I observe. "People dealing with problems, even minor disasters in ways that are funny to most anyone else."

"Tyrah say same thing," he sighs. "I have her find and run Three Stooges short you and I saw years ago while living at lifeboat station. She laughs, but I just wince."

"Maybe your sense of humour just lies in a different direction. But have you seen the movie Mister Ed was based on?" I wonder.

"Francis the Mule?" Spring replies. "Yep. Even met real horse and mule with Tyrah."

"Not these stars?" I ask, looking at the screen again.

"No," he replies, watching it with me. "But much preferred mule. It calm, sensible. Horse too flighty, even panicked, trying to figure out what I was. Tyrah and I even flew north, met reindeer herd once. They instinctively knew me as predator, and ran. Tyrah had to leap off me, injecting Sami herder as I flew ahead and corralled herd back in pen for him."

"You two must have been violating protocols routinely," I surmise.

"I keep trying to hold her back," he says, "but she wanted to introduce me to Outside. I could not refuse her. She even take me to tail end of dragon festival in fairgrounds just outside Bodø up coast once."

I couldn't help chuckling amid my surprise at another of his revelations.

"Glad you enjoy pun," he continues. "But she tell me to act like advanced robot as we land in woods nearby. I stiffly walk into fair, staring ahead as she ride me. We meet two Outside Guardians in small late evening crowd though. It dark, they flash badges to us in silent panic as they stand in front of me, vainly trying to hide me from rest of crowd beyond. Tyrah flashes her military I.D., thankfully coming up with story of KJK Dragon Unit limited public experiment that's above Guardians' clearance. Amazingly, they buy it. Tyrah very good liar, except to me.

"She mind-tell me to move only at her command, then tell crowd gathering around us that I advanced animatronic dragon. That allows me to move some. We just stay there, me mechanically moving head, blinking eyes, but looking public in eyes now and then. Children carefully pet me, a few say I'm real. Mind-probing them, they know I'm real, yet aren't afraid. They accept me. Through them, I see new possible future, living openly with Outsiders.

"Later, Tyrah even had me fire into sky amid closing fireworks show," he continues on a lighter note. "Crowd loved it all, but Outside Guardians 'sweat bullets' as you say. She buy me big bag of popcorn as well as cotton candy and bucket of cider while festival closes and crowd finally disperses, as reward for going along with her stunt."

"And she was never court-martialled?" I wonder.

Spring just shakes his head as he glances at me. "Baroness personally interceded, more than once. I almost think Tyrah on missions for Baroness as part of your 'coming out' idea, but never mind-probe either of them deep enough to confirm."

"That kind of thing wasn't my idea," I note, " . . . but actually, I like it."

"I think baroness like it, too," Spring now almost smiles as we both resume watching the screen again.

"Sure I not keeping you up?" he asks.

I glance back at the closed partition behind us. "You're not," I assure, knowing Roana, Substance and Rökkr are sleeping on the other side of it. "I told you I'd keep you company no matter what, no matter when—and I'm only too happy to. Want some more popcorn?"

"We have two bags already . . . mostly me though," he replies.

"I can make more," I offer, "especially with an en suite microwave."

"I fine," he answers, looking down though.

"No need to lie to your dad," I gently reply, stretching my left arm over his neck.

"Couldn't sleep last night," he says, "can't sleep tonight. Hate being dragon at time like this . . ."

"Why not just talk it out," I encourage. "It's part of what I'm here for."

"This why Altaff kill himself," he continues. "Unbearable hole in heart, even though it different in my case. But telling self Tyrah will return . . . it doesn't help. Wish I not care, not feel as much. Wish I were human."

"We humans feel, too," I note. "But maybe you were human, in a past life."

"Maybe you, I, father and son in past life," he agrees. "What if you once Hiccup, and I once Erik?"

"That would be something," I muse. "But it makes me feel even closer to you, you know that?"

"Yeah," he finally smiles a little, bringing his head around onto my lap. "Dad . . ." he sighs as his eyes close. Spring has found a happy thought for now—me, and being my son.

I sit there for a minute on our bedding, watching him fall asleep at last, wishing I could make his inner pain go away. Perhaps I am though. For being such seemingly fearsome creatures, dragons seem to have such tender, even fragile hearts.

Clicking the TV and its DVD player off with a remote, I ease myself down a little against his thick right foreleg as his neck and head remain essentially wrapped around my left side. It's almost like sleeping sitting up in a hard leather recliner, but it'll work.

My dragon son is worth it though. He is worth everything.

— — — — —

Days 27 and 28

We spend these two days voyaging along Baffin Island's long eastern coast at our fairly leisurely and economical cruising speed of 18 knots, being in no rush as I await further news from Hope on negotiations she may be having with Canada. Any news at all would be nice, but between likely shuttling to Ottawa as well as coordinating Tyrah's defence and hearings in Halifax, I know that my grown daughter already has more than enough on her plate.

The weather around us onboard the Drekar however is as grey and vague as our future seems to be right now. Even though it is practically summer, we are experiencing flurries of snow that alternate with sleet and freezing rain or drizzle. I am all the more glad that I made the efforts I did to get us all ashore a couple days ago at L'Anse aux Meadows in the sunshine. Gods know our dragons especially deserved at least one bit of nice shore leave on a sunny beach.

But looking out beyond the ship at all this grey mist, as well as the silence from down south . . . with each passing nautical mile, the tension is just building inside of me for some reason. I try to remind myself that options for us do exist. Heck, we wound up 'bookmarking' several abandoned villages along the Labrador coast. Now though, I have my own demons of doubt—feelings that I've led us down a hole, that this voyage is just a waste of fuel and money.

It's almost like Arctic sirens of despair are calling to me. _Give up, give up . . ._ they seem to say.

"Wouldn't want to live anywhere around here," Spring notes to me looking out into the gloom from the bridge on Day 28, taking an afternoon bridge watch himself, "even though there is plenty of space and isolation. This worse than New Berk, much worse. All us dragons be flying into cliffs to end our miseries after while of this."

Good. I don't seem to be alone in what I'm feeling here. It must be the weather, even place itself—although I've known very similar conditions in New Berk for decades now. Best if I just stop trying to figure it out, I decide.

"Drekar, Drekar, this is Coast Guard Station Iqaluit on Channel 16, over," comes a call out of the blue though on the bridge radio speakers, via the main safety channel of the Marine VHF band that all ships monitor.

"VOX please," Spring requests.

"You're on," a young female løytnant next to me confirms.

"Iqaluit, this Drekar, over," Spring answers.

"Drekar, switch to channel Beta, over," the radio speakers crackle, asking us to switch to a secured channel used among NATO warships.

"Drekar confirms. Switching. Out," Spring radios, nodding towards the løytnant next to me as she hits more soft keys on one screen of the front panel.

"Drekar, Drekar, Coast Guard Iqaluit on secure Channel Beta, over," the radio call comes as soon as the new frequency is switched to.

"Drekar here, over," my dragon son confirms as both he and I glance at one another given their apparent eagerness to re-establish contact.

"Drekar," the Coast Guard radios, "we have been tracking the progress of what claims to be a trawl ship under Liberian registry named Morning Dawn, eastbound through the Northwest Passage for two and a half days. They have rounded Bylot Island into the Atlantic, but have radioed another ship or station within the last four hours, reporting engine trouble. Monitoring communication, we offered to coordinate assistance, dispatching a volunteer fishing boat from Pond Inlet to rendezvous with them. But the boat has not checked in since confirming approach to the vessel and the vessel is no longer responding to our hails.

"We have no other surface assets in the area, and the weather is too thick for aerial interception," the call continues. "We're informed that you are an available NATO asset, so we request your assistance in investigating the situation, over."

"Vessel is likely in international waters off Baffin," Spring replies, having evidently already sensed the vessel's crew and ascertained their position. "Do you wish boarding and seizure if we believe Canadian nationals are held on suspect vessel? Over."

"If possible, yes," the Coast Guard radios back, "as vessel appears to be behaving suspiciously and may be carrying contraband. They may have been calling for assistance from their Canadian or American contacts. Over."

Spring and I glance at one another again. "Drekar accepts," he says while maintaining our gaze. "Will keep you informed, over."

"Copy, Drekar," Iqaluit calls back. "We are dispatching Canadian frigate Fredericton from Halifax to assist. E.T.A. thirty-two hours at best speed however, over."

"Drekar understands," Spring replies. "Suspect vessel E.T.A. twenty minutes on turbines. Will keep you informed on this channel. Drekar out."

"Thank you for assisting, Drekar," the radio speakers respond. "Iqaluit clear."

"VOX off. Come right to course Three Five Zero, accelerate to forty-five knots," my son then orders in quick succession. "P.A. please."

"Coming right to course Three Five Zero," the helmsman confirms.

"Accelerating to forty-five knots," the løytnant confirms as she works the panel. "You're on, Captain."

"Öll skipshöfn, þetta er skipstjóri. All hands, this is Captain," he then says in Norse and English. "Vit höfum verit betin um kanadíska Landhelgisgæslu at rannsaka smygl skip á alþjótlegu hafsvæti. We have been asked by Canadian Coast Guard to investigate smuggling vessel in international waters. Allar autlindir kunna at vera starfandi. Grunar skipit mun líklega vera um bort og greip amidst vopnutum andspyrnu. All assets may be employed. Suspect vessel will likely be boarded and seized amid armed resistance. Fara til bardaga stötvar í tíu mínútur. Stand to battle stations in ten minutes. Skipstjóri út. Captain out."

"P.A. off," the løytnant pre-emptively confirms.

"Dad, as you Canadian, I put you on radio and P.A. hailing vessel to disguise our identity," Spring now directs me. "We will be Patrol Ship Drekar. That all they need to know. They have Canadian boat captives onboard, having sunk boat earlier. Vessel is carrying high-grade Asian raw opium in payment for weapons, but they are armed," he says, closing his eyes, " . . . They have guns, rocket grenades, and several shoulder-mounted small missiles."

"Du er lettet, Løytnant," Second Officer Ivar Jansen says as he approaches Spring's assisting female watch officer behind me, before assuming the panel station himself.

As the Drekar now almost soars across the waves at flank speed, the minutes silently tick by on the bridge. The second officer monitors the radar display in front of him, but does not call out either bearing or distance to the suspect vessel, knowing that the captain is fully aware of both. Everyone seems acutely conscious that this is not a drill or exercise this time.

Finally, "Call battle stations," Spring instructs. "Stand by gun and torpedoes," he adds.

"Bardaga stötvar! Battle stations! Bardaga stötvar! Battle stations!" the second officer calls on the PA, briefly accompanied by electronic klaxon alarms before they go silent. The red alarm lights continue to flash however.

Spring seems to be in deep concentration for a moment as he looks downward out his forward window. "Slow to twenty-five knots," he then says. "Launch boat units to surround suspect vessel, guns at ready. Launching dragon unit myself."

"Slowing to twenty-five knots," Second Officer Jansen confirms, pulling back the throttles somewhat, before picking up a handset. "KJK Enheter To og Tre, lansering," he then calls in Bokmål. "Omringe skipet, våpen klar. Enhet To til port, Enhet Tre til styrbord."

I glance at the front panel's video monitors to see one commando RHIB boat slide backwards down a guide way set in the port side of the stern ramp into the foam of our ship's wake while Árvekni and his US Navy rider take to the air out the starboard side of the same ramp, followed by a second Night Fury and its rider and a couple more KJK dragons and riders. A second RHIB and team is dropped from a cradle out the open starboard quarter portal, followed by Skelfa and his rider and a few additional dragons and riders as well. Surprisingly, this time each dragon is carrying an additional commando with an assault rifle at the ready, lying in a sling underneath. But within less than sixty seconds, all three of our KJK teams are launched and heading forward on either side of the Drekar to take their assigned positions around the suspect vessel somewhere amid the grey gloom ahead of us.

"Standby, Chief," Spring now says to me. "Ivar, give him handset, tuned to Sixteen. Chief, you are to call 'Morning Dawn' twice, followed by, 'This is Patrol Ship Drekar, approaching to assist. What is your status? Over.' Then wait for further instructions."

"Aye, Captain," I confirm, taking a nervous breath, hoping I don't screw up this simple but important part as Jansen gives me a handset from the panel.

"Just wanted you to know Substance and I will be standing by in Sick Bay," Roana now says behind me, almost making me jump. "Rökkr is standing by at the hangar entrance, mind-monitoring what's going on. He won't think of letting me ride and go with him this time. Says he might need the saddle space for rescues anyway."

"Exactly where and how I need him," Spring confirms next to me. "Thank you, Doctor—I mean Mom."

"Didn't want you worrying, Lance, if you see Rökkr in the air without me," my mate says, laying a hand on my shoulder as she turns to depart.

"Ship three miles," Spring says looking intently out the window. "Should be coming in view. Chief, make your call."

Depressing the button on the maroon handset as I put it to the left side of my face, "Morning Dawn, Morning Dawn, this is Patrol Ship Drekar, approaching to assist. What is your status? Over."

Releasing the button I then hear nothing but radio static through both my handset and the bridge radio speakers.

"Repeat hail," Spring orders.

"Morning Dawn, Morning Dawn," I say into the handset once more while now beginning to see the suspect ship through the snowy gloom in front of us. "This is Patrol Ship Drekar, approaching to assist. What is your status? Over."

"Teams, weapons ready. Target bridge and aft main deck around engine uptake," my dragon son directs as Jansen simultaneously radios the instructions to the KJK teams via another handset.

Once more we hear static in reply from the suspect ship. It is a fairly large and long vessel with a dark hull, as well as a distinct bridge structure forward and an engine casing and funnel aft, much like an old-fashioned freighter.

"Evasive! Hard left to Two Eight Zero!" Spring orders as we see a flash from the bridge structure.

"Hard left to Two Eight Zero," the helmsman confirms as he swings the wheel. The ship now banks into her left turn.

"Teams board and take ship," Spring calmly orders, even before a small missile hits the water off our starboard side with an explosive splash.

"Styret og ta skipet! Styret og ta skipet!" Jansen urgently relays into his handset.

"Ivar," Spring then says, "put Chief on external P.A. as well as Sixteen. Chief, radio, 'Morning Dawn, Morning Dawn, stand down and prepare to be boarded, by order of Canadian and Berk governments'—with your concurrence, Chief," my son adds, looking at me.

I just nod before depressing the handset button, "Morning Dawn, Morning Dawn," I convey. "Stand down and prepare to be boarded, by order of the Canadian and Berk governments."

"Å ta geværild!" we now hear on the bridge speakers from one of our commandos in Bokmål amid sounds of gunfire.

"Shift your helm," Spring then directs, "standard right rudder to Zero Four Zero. Present minimal aspect to them. Comm, radio Iqaluit that we taking fire and have engaged enemy."

The orders are confirmed and carried out around the bridge as the Drekar now turns to starboard. In the distance, dragons swoop in upon the Liberian ship both fore and aft. The commandos drop from the slings underneath each dragon down upon the vessel's deck as commandos in the dragons' saddles jump off as well. The growing force of commandos quickly take cover once onboard the Morning Dawn, firing on the opposing crew as they're able to. Having inserted his two commandos, Árvekni swoops forward beside the ship, breaking away from it as further flash from the bridge area can be seen. A second Night Fury in front of the enemy vessel fires a fainter, largely concussive blast at the vessel's bridge, blowing its windows and side door inward as the crew there are blown down as well. At the same instant, Árvekni fires a blast of his own seemingly towards nothing, before a bright flash and explosion right in front of him knocks the dragon back as he then falls to the sea.

"Dragon down," Spring calls. "Divert Boat Team Three to rescue. All stop. Launch rescue boat with combat medics to assist."

"Dragen nede! Doktor Ýsa, sanitetssoldat teamet for å redde båten," Jansen pages on the PA next to me in Bokmål, knowing my mate is available, and has combat experience. I reach for the engine throttles myself, confirming, "All stop," as Jansen nods his head towards me with a glance. The ship now slows in her turn as we begin pointing once more towards the Morning Dawn while the distance closes between the two ships.

"Helm amidships," Spring orders. "Reverse engines. Hold position, facing them."

The second officer glances at me as he continues listening on his handset. "Move the throttles into 'Reversere' briefly to Five," he quietly says to me, briefly placing his right hand over the mouthpiece of his handset. "When the ship is almost ceasing forward momentum, move them back to Zero."

"I've guest-handled a twin-screw yacht before," I reply to him, taking and moving the throttles back now, "a couple times in Texas eons ago."

"Same thing. Just keep us here using those throttles," he quietly directs before focusing again on monitoring and coordinating our commando and medic forces out before us.

There are two more flashes from the Liberian ship's main deck aft next to the funnel casing as Spring almost whips his head and focus in their direction. The second Night Fury fires a blast from above the enemy ship now, causing an explosion beneath it in the air. The Nightmare, Skelfa, suddenly hurls himself forward over the water at a distance between us and the Liberian ship though. Firing a sweeping arc of his gelatinous flame ahead and beside him, he almost rolls in the air onto his right side. An even more powerful explosion seems to almost envelop him as he, too then falls to the ocean beneath.

Now speeding forward along the Drekar's port side, complete with its own Gronkle providing aerial protection, the rescue RHIB makes for Skelfa, presumably seeing KJK Boat Team Three reaching Árvekni's position. Possibly directed by Spring's intense gaze, the second Night Fury now fires another of its concussive blasts towards the Liberian ship's aft main deck, sending crewmen and doors there flying. Our commandos onboard then surge straight into the mêlée before the debris even settles.

Meanwhile, divers from both the rescue and KJK boats immediately plunge into the frigid water beside each of our downed dragons, running wide yellow inflatable rescue collars underneath their necks and heads to keep them above the surface, helping them to keep breathing. The collars rapidly inflate as the divers work to ensure each dragon's head is in the centre of each float.

The radio traffic on both our rescue and commando mobile frequencies is overlapping on the bridge speakers now—mainly in Bokmål, which seems to be the ship's primary dialect as most of the crew are Outside Berker. But I hear one call in American English. It's our US Navy lieutenant, Anuun Kleluk, who has apparently wound up leading one commando team as it penetrates into the Liberian ship, looking for the Canadian hostages.

"We're going down the aft stairway!" he whispers on the radio as we listen on the bridge.

"Chief, monitor Kleluk's frequency, Mobil Five," Spring directs. "Ivar, keep monitoring forward team on Four, so I can focus elsewhere."

"Aye, sir," . . . "Yes, Captain," both Jansen and I say as we switch our handset dials. After I begin hearing muffled footsteps on a steel ladder along with shallow breathing on my handset, I then hear several rapid volleys of gunshots through the lieutenant's open headset mike set on VOX. "We're hearing shouts for help in English," he breathes, trying to keep quiet. "The Canadians are ahead . . . I see two enemy ahead. Duck!" he says more normally to his team as I can hear gunfire both close and further away. "One's providing cover fire while the other's kneeling down . . . Charges! He's rigging charges! Trying to stop them!" as I hear more gunfire. "Clear! CLEAR OUT!" Kleluk now openly yells. "Drekar send Damage Contr—"

Suddenly he's interrupted by a loud blast followed by a chilling static. From our bridge, I see dark smoke begin to billow out an open doorway from the aft superstructure.

"Kleluk, report, over!" I now call, briefly depressing my handset's transmit button. All I hear back is static.

"Kleluk and his squad may be down," I then quickly relay. "Let's get another squad to them. Last thing he asked for was a Damage Control team, seeing a scuttling charge being set by the enemy ahead of him. All I'm getting is static on his frequency now."

"Aft squad is down," Spring confirms, seeming to shift or refocus his attention as he looks toward the suspect ship.

"Alle lagene, alle lagene," the second officer calls, "akterut teamet nede. Akterut teamet nede. Sjekk ut og redde," dispatching available squads to rescue our stricken aft squad. He then flips his handset dial. "Båt Teamet To, Båt Teamet To, tilbake til Drekar å plukke opp skade kontroll partiet, styrbord portalen!" he now calls, requesting Boat Team Two to come back to pick up a damage control party. He then rapidly flips the dial again before speaking into his handset. "Motorrommet, sende skade kontroll partiet å oppdrag plass styrbord portalen for transport!" calling for Engineering to send a Damage Control detail to the starboard Mission Space portal for transport.

I then just glance at Spring and he immediately replies, "Do it. Mobil Six."

Flipping the control dial for my own handset to Mobil 6, "Roana," I call directly, "if you can spare any combat medics, we have an explosion on the vessel, likely with casualties on our side. Over."

"I'm mind-calling Rökkr," she replies. "He can take one of my medics, but Skelfa is critical. I can't leave. Boat Team Three is reporting Árvekni seriously injured, but somewhat more stable. Diver, get that air tourniquet around him!" she interrupts herself. "Gotta keep working here, Lance. Over."

"Copy, Roana," I radio back. "Keep going. Drekar clear." I then see Rökkr surging forward past our bridge to starboard. Barely slowing in the air, he grabs hold of one medic in a flak jacket and helmet who stands up beside Roana as she continues leaning out of the boat, giving Skelfa another injection in his neck. I can just see her and a diver also working to extend a second inflatable collar or tourniquet around the Nightmare's wings and under his chest in the water. At the moment, only the dragon's head is floating right side up above the water, thanks to the collar, almost a pillow, that is supporting him.

Meanwhile, the second Night Fury is now laying down a couple more concussive blasts along the ship's far side out of our view.

Even though we can hear parts of it on the bridge speakers, "Forward team reports finding and liberating Canadians," Jansen now relays. "Another team has made it past hull breach and is rescuing Kleluk's squad. Reporting injuries and casualties, both sides. Extinguishing fires as they go."

Boat Team Two then zooms forward in their RHIB from the Drekar's starboard side, carrying the Damage Control Party. Black smoke continues to pour out of the aft doorway on the Liberian ship's main deck as its hull seems to be settling a little lower in the water. It's a matter of managing competing priorities and emergencies now.

Jansen assures our commandos onboard the Morning Dawn that a Damage Control team is on the way as a couple of them can be seen rigging a rope ladder down the ship's side to receive the team. Fortunately other commandos are now bringing up injured from the lieutenant's squad outside onto the Morning Dawn's main deck as the medic Rökkr has ferried over is already beginning to treat the first of them.

"Bridge, forward superstructure and forward main deck secured," Jansen then relays, still listening to his handset. "Crew progressively surrendering and being rounded up. Still pockets of resistance on the lower decks though. Two other scuttling attempts have been discovered and thwarted."

"Very well," Spring accepts, still facing steadily out a forward window.

I manage to relax a little.

"Squads now escorting Damage Control to Engine Room and the one hull breach," Jansen reports.

I continue to gently move the twin engine throttles back and forth at times so that the Drekar maintains position. The radio chatter on the bridge speakers seems to die down a little.

"Pumper arbeider. Men vi trenger polstring for et skrog lapp," we soon hear the Damage Control team telling us they have the Morning Dawn's pumps working, but that they need padding to patch a hole the detonated charge made in the ship's hull.

"If combat is over," Roana now breaks in on the rescue channel, "release the KJK dragons. We need evac of our two injured back to the Drekar. I'm mind-calling them, but no one has been coming. My two patients are nearing if not in hypothermia. Over."

"Copy, Roana," I radio back. "Spring is nodding at me. Dragons are on the way. Drekar clear."

"I needed on evac," my dragon son decides. "Take conn, Ivar. Chief, remain and assist him, please."

"Yes, Captain," both Jansen and I wind up saying together this time as Spring turns to exit the bridge.

"Which would you prefer, manoeuvring or mobile force coordination?" the second officer then asks me. "While human watch officers normally man this panel alone, I'd appreciate the help."

"Since you have more of a knowledge of this ship's crew and resources, and I've at least run that twin-screw yacht in the past," I decide, "I think I'll take manoeuvring."

"Very well," Ivar accepts. "Slowly move us within a few hundred metres of the other ship without endangering our own forces in the water. It would help if you could pivot us around so our stern and starboard quarter access ports are facing the other ship. If I see you running into any problems, I'll issue instructions."

Nothing like a trial by fire with a 3,600 metric ton ship.

"Feel free to use the starboard wing station if you like," Jansen quietly adds next to me with his hand over his handset's mouthpiece. "That way you have steering control as well with a joy stick and don't have to issue helm orders. Tyrah and I have single-handed the Drekar in and out of domestic Norwegian ports we have pilotage certifications for that way a couple times."

"Alle tilgjengelige mannskap til utvinning og triage stasjoner," we now hear the Drekar's Medical Officer call on the ship's PA. "Stå ved å motta sårede," he continues, asking for all available crew to assist in receiving the wounded.

"Helm, Comm, Sonar," Jansen then says to the crewmen behind us, "you're all relieved. Report to the Medical Officer down at the hangar and help with relief efforts."

"Aye, sir," the crewmen respond in English as they rush from their stations on the bridge and in the alcove aft out to the corridor to help.

"I know you're at least a field surgeon as well, Chief," Jansen adds to me. "But until I can get the løytnant I relieved back, I could use your help for a few more minutes here."

"You got it," I assure as I move over to the glass-enclosed starboard wing.

"Just hit the 'Aktiver' or 'Enable' buttons in front of both the throttles and the joy stick to activate them," he added as he went back to speaking Bokmål into his handset.

"Handles like a yacht," I breathe nervously to myself as I hit the two Enable buttons on the console in front of me at the bridge wing, pulling the smaller port throttle gently back to '2' as I move the smaller starboard throttle ahead an equal amount. The Drekar slowly begins twisting to the left.

"Set up two dragon surgeries in the hangar, even out on the flight deck!" Jansen and I now hear Roana direct via the bridge speakers. "I'm running out of time with Skelfa. He keeps going in and out of arrest, and he has an open wound underneath which is fortunately being cauterized by the cold seawater. Lance I need you there, ready to operate. The Medical Officer is reporting a number of human injured he will need to have surgical teams for who are critical as well."

"Zero out and disable your controls, then go!" Ivar now tells me, as I move my throttles back to stop and hit the Aktiver buttons off. Fortunately the young blonde female løytnant is returning to the bridge just as I leave.

I now dash down the inclined ramp and across an empty crew mess space through the already opened doors into the hangar. It is a mêlée of its own there. Crew are busy readying gurneys, wheeled beds, even whole triage and emergency surgical stations as our KJK dragons are already beginning to bring back the first human wounded to the flight deck outside.

Briefly taking in the busy scene before me, I appreciate anew a key value of the dragons in combat and relief roles—precision flying and insertion or evac of personnel. Our human relief crews simply hold a gurney up upon their shoulders as the first Night Fury hovers down, carefully laying the wounded human it is cradling in its four legs into the gurney, before flying off to retrieve the next casualty. It is so much faster than using helicopters, and would be a model of efficiency, even poetry in motion, if the circumstances weren't so sad and critical.

"Han har alvorlige brannskader og hjernerystelse traumer," a corpsmen is informing the Medical Officer of the burns and concussive trauma injuries of this first patient as they and a few other crew rush him past me en route to the ship's Sick Bay. Even though much of his head is bandaged and body covered in a blanket, I recognize the singed side of the face I can see.

It's Lieutenant Kleluk.

He has obviously borne virtually the full force of the blast he was urging his squad away from during his radio transmission earlier. That Anuun has returned to the Drekar alive in his condition is already a miracle. But it's all too clear he needs another one.

"Doctor, your scrubs," a crewman says behind me, holding a surgical gown for me to don. "An emergency wash station is set up right over there," he adds with a glance towards a far corner of the hangar.

I have my own miracle to perform.

"Right," I say as I strip my Berker flying jacket off and accept his help in donning the teal green gown over my tunic before turning to scrub up at the wash station.

"You and Doctor Roana will be working Dragon Station Two in the hangar here," the crewman says, staying right with me. "The patient will be a Nightmare with an open chest wound and possible significant internal organ damage. Sutures, blood bags and more are being assembled now."

"Very well," I accept, quickly soaping and scrubbing my hands and forearms with soap under the running water at the wash station. I then turn to him holding my dripping hands as the crewman quickly rubs them dry with a surgical towel and snaps rubber surgical gloves on before he secures a surgical cap and mask around my head.

"They're arriving," he then says, looking aside and listening to his radio earpiece.

"Tømme dekk!" we now hear outside the hangar in Bokmål. Crew then make way on the landing platform as a large cargo sling and the Nightmare cradled within it are flown carefully by five other dragons over the hangar and down towards the open deck beyond. To my amazement, Roana is stradding the unresponsive dragon's neck, facing backwards towards the rest of his body as she monitors it with a stethoscope. A compact field defibrillator is right next to one of her legs, seemingly barely balanced within the netting.

"Arrester!" Roana calls out in Bokmål, reaching for the two defibrillator paddles. "Klar!" she then calls, even though no one else is working on the dragon and the other dragons flying him are insulated by the nylon netting. She then applies the paddles to the dragon's neck, not even bothering to stand up, counting on her own heavy winter combat clothing to insulate her against the defibrillator's shock.

"Lance!" she then calls to me as I step outside from the open hangar. "We operate right here on the flight deck, as soon as we can turn him over. We have to seal the ruptured organs and get his blood pressure back up! Get sutures now!

"Dragon Team One," she then continues automatically in English, having been with me way too many years now, "take the hangar station! Árvekni is right behind us, but is less critical. He can be moved inside before being operated on!" she calls to the other dragon surgical team as dragons land her and Skelfa on the landing platform on top of some spread sterilized hospital bedsheets and mattress padding.

"Okay," she then says as I approach with the first threaded suture at the ready while more sheets and padding are spread next to Skelfa out of the way of the hangar doorway. "Everyone else, roll him to port on three. One, two, three. Give me scrubs!"

As other crew carefully roll the wounded Nightmare onto his back, two other assistants strip the wet parka and bloodied surgical gloves from Roana. A surgical gown is put on her as one of them wipes her hands and forearms with alcohol wipes before fresh gloves are snapped on and a facemask and cap are put on around her head.

Ripping open the large yellow air tourniquet at its Velcro seam from Skelfa's chest, as well as the wet and bloody bandaging underneath that had been applied in the water by a diver, I am already delving into his grievous open wound and carefully but hurriedly suturing closed a ruptured lung, seeing his fortunately still weakly beating heart practically right next to it.

"Hold it open!" I call as the surrounding muscle and flesh closes around my working hands. Other assistants now hold the wound open for me with both forceps and gloved hands as I barely notice a second squad of dragons carefully landing Árvekni on the flight deck next to us.

"Arrest!" I then call as I can feel Skelfa's heart stop beating with the back of my right gloved hand.

"Clear!" Roana calls as I stop what I'm doing and all of us remove our thinly gloved hands to avoid getting jolted ourselves.

The dragon's body briefly convulses before us as the current is applied, before relaxing again. I quickly reopen the wound to see the heart remaining stilled.

"Still arrest," I call.

"Clear!" Roana responds. She applies the paddles again, to the same result.

"Epinephrine," Roana then calls. "Thirty-five, no forty cc's." A large syringe is then handed to her as she injects its entire contents into the Nightmare's neck.

"Still arrest," I call, peering into the wound yet again. I would be ready to call for a blood transfusion at this point to begin restoring vital fluid and blood pressure levels. But unless even a minimal cardiac rhythm can be re-established, anything else is pointless.

We defibrillate several more times, but there is no change.

Roana and I look at one another as we both pause. Tears are forming in her eyes. "One more time," she decides, charging the paddles again.

"Clear," she says as the paddles are applied. The Nightmare's body convulses and then relaxes. I put my gloved hand back into the wound this time, directly feeling the heart muscle for even the subtlest signs of activity and life.

But there are none.

Even briefly massaging the heart muscle with both hands, trying to coax it back to life once more, I am forced to shake my head as my gaze returns to my mate.

"For four Canadians, and a rust bucket full of opium," Roana says with an icy bitterness at first, before she looks aside. "I'm sorry," she then says, gazing down. "I didn't mean it the way it sounded. I'm glad they were saved."

"Skelfa saved us . . . our home," a lightly-wounded KJK commando now says with a Norse accent as he stands behind us, his right arm already in a sling. "Fisker Grípari," he adds with a quiet pride. "Nothing gets past us. Nothing touches our home, this ship."

I close my eyes, gently nodding.

— — — — —

A wet snow is now falling once more, beginning to apply a perhaps angelic dusting upon the now lifeless Nightmare's body we have been working on, and upon the rest of us, too. Standing up once more, I draw close beside Roana, both of us instinctively still keeping our gloved hands in front of us at the ready though.

"Let's see how they're doing with Árvekni," my mate now suggests.

We walk inside the hangar to find the surgical team surrounding the Night Fury working at a steadier, less urgent pace.

"We're available," Roana says with a quiet sigh behind them as the Assistant Medical Officer and a corpsman turn to look at us.

"Vould you mind taking on the left eye?" the officer asks. "Ve believe it can be saved, even vith tissues from the right, vhich unfortunately is beyond hope."

"Can't save that right foreleg either, huh?" my mate notes, seeing three of the team members now beginning to cut and even saw through the mangled tissue and bone of the limb.

The surgeon shakes his head. "Ve vere lucky to save the right wing. But he vill need therapy before he flies again. The right jaw," he adds, " . . . ve're having Engineering machine a temporary titanium replacement for zat now. His new teeth von't be retracting on that side anymore, but he vill be able to chew."

"And people are afraid of dragons?" my mate sighs as she and I nudge our foreheads together. "I think they have much more to fear from us."

"Let's get to work," I gently suggest. "We have some eyesight to save."

"Fortunately the tools have improved since the last time we were confronted with this," she replies as we scrub again at the same emergency wash station I had used, before assistants snap fresh surgical gloves on each of us. A small robotic surgical terminal is then wheeled into place at Árvekni's head by assistants. Looking at a video flat screen and turning up the magnification, Roana then slips her gloved hands into its scissor handle-like manipulators. The whole assembly is lowered to the level of the dragon's inverted face, forcing Roana to drop to her knees in order to work.

I drop to my knees as well, ready to remove donor tissue as requested from Árvekni's hopelessly ruptured right eye. Looking through my own magnifying visor glasses now placed over my head by an assistant, I can see that although torn, maybe the lens can be saved and re-used. But much of the rest of this eye is ruptured and torn beyond recovery. Some of it is even missing.

The work then proceeds very slowly as Roana proceeds to carefully close ruptured veins and arteries in the left eye, repair tears in the tissue, and finally sew the existing lens closed, all at almost a microscopic level using the precision robotic tools at her command. Early on, she releases me to work elsewhere on the Night Fury. I find I much prefer macroscopic surgical work over the microscopic. Suffering more from shrapnel wounds concentrated around his right shoulder, upper chest, and head than the widespread concussive traumas throughout the torso that Substance once had, Árvekni is easier to work on. His survival is never really in doubt. That he is also not my dragon companion may have had something to do with my calmer attitude this time, but any injured dragon moves me to both compassion and anger. Roana has settled that deeply within me long ago.

Finally, the last suture is closed and bandage applied as our Night Fury patient is waking up, still inside the hangar.

"He asks if he's blind," Substance conveys to me, as with bandaging now carefully wrapped around Árvekni's implanted jaw replacement, he is unable to speak at present.

"You'll be seeing out of your left eye soon, Árvekni," Roana assured, stroking him with a hand. The Night Fury seems to relax as he drops his bandaged head back onto a large pillow.

"'Have I lost leg?'" Substance conveys for him again.

"Yes, your right foreleg," Roana confirms as the bandaged stump of that leg now moves.

"You still KJK Dragon Unit commander," Spring says next to us though. "We expect you to adapt and continue."

"He says, 'Yes, sir,'" Substance relays for those of us who can't mind read Dragon. "But asks, 'Where's Annuunn?'"

"He should be coming out of surgery in Sick Bay," I gently reply. "He took virtually the full force of a scuttling charge the Morning Dawn's crew managed to detonate while the squad he was leading searched the ship."

"He says, 'Take me to him,'" Substance conveys for Árvekni.

Soon, almost a dozen of us are carefully lifting Árvekni from both sides as a mobile dragon gurney is wheeled under him. We've learned how to make collapsible hospital beds large enough for dragons.

We then wheel the injured Night Fury through the mess area and straight forward along the central passageway, reaching the ship's Sick Bay on the right. As we move Árvekni's bed next to his rider's in a recovery area, even though his snout is bandaged shut, the dragon begins humming. It's not a dragon prayer however, as the tones are varying. As the Night Fury continues humming, briefly pausing for periodic breaths, I begin to realize Árvekni is likely singing an Iñupiat song that Lieutenant Kleluk has been teaching him.

Not knowing how the song goes, all the rest of us can do is watch, listen and marvel as a dragon sings to his rider and now clearly adopted companion, despite the Night Fury's own serious injuries.

A song hummed from dragon to rider becomes a symbol of hope, a sign that life will go on. It is a final miracle to be thankful for at the end of what has become a very hard day.

— — — — —

Day 29

The Drekar's commandos and engineers have spent the previous night securing and stabilizing the poorly-named Liberian ship, Morning Dawn—which upon further examination, does not have a legitimate Liberian registry. She is therefore classified as a pirate ship to be awarded as a prize under international law to Berk.

The Morning Dawn is in such marginal shape though that we don't really want her. But Substance quickly objects on behalf of her whale friends against our even entertaining the idea of sinking the vessel for target practice. So, through radio calls, we convince the Canadian frigate Fredericton to take her in tow back to Halifax for scrapping, as they don't want her as a sunken environmental hazard in their fragile Baffin or Grand Banks fishing grounds either. Her concealed but large cargo of opium will be useful in Canada as evidence anyway to convict the surviving crew, before it is either destroyed or legally sold to be converted into prescription morphine.

"With the tonnage estimates you have provided," my daughter Hope replies in a secured satellite telephone discussion this morning with me sitting at the Comm console in the radio room that is part of the CIC alcove off the bridge, "that cargo could still be worth millions as morphine and other prescription opiates."

"Alright," I sigh, "maybe we will take title to the ship after all. Just use it the best way you can to get us a Canadian island or even an isolated cove."

"Given your performance yesterday, they're kind of pushing a remote island partway along the Northwest Passage towards us at the moment," she notes, "saying it would be really helpful to have us there."

"Somewhere _south_ of the Arctic Circle, please?" I reiterate, even though I'm not planning to live there myself.

"I'll see what I can do, Daddy," Hope seems to smile over the phone. "But you all have given me a good bargaining chip, even a favour owed, to work with now."

"A chip and favour that Skelfa and two of our human commandos paid for with their lives," I remind.

"Understood," my daughter more soberly replies. "Back to work though, Daddy. Talk to you later, bye."

Too late, I realize I had forgotten to ask her how Tyrah's hearings were going.

Radio conversations with the Fredericton though reveal that they have a delivery for us. "Sorry," their skipper tells us via a secured radio channel when we ask what it is however. "That is ultra-classified. I am told it's, 'Eyes only.'" Spring and I share a subtle smile, but neither of us lets on what we think that delivery might be.

With the weather poised to take a turn for the worse again however, we and the Fredericton agree to rendezvous in a remote and sheltered fjord somewhere along the northeast coast of Baffin Island. Taking the Morning Dawn in tow for even a few hours, our crew is stretched thin as our engineers keep that ship afloat and her power on, while our deck crew set and monitor the tow lines between the two vessels.

The Morning Dawn's seventeen surviving crewmembers of various Asian, Philippine and even African nationalities have been transferred by boat to the Drekar. It was deemed both risky, due to the Dawn's condition, as well as dangerous to keep them onboard their ship, in case they could access any hidden caches of weapons we hadn't found yet.

So after being frisked, the outlaw crew are now under the watchful eye of our KJK commandos and dragons, confined to our lower berthing area forward. Our dragons are proving to be the best guards though—keeping our prisoners almost spellbound with their mere existence, as well as nicely cowed and intimidated with a simple glare, snap of their jaws, or the smallest of blasts. Best of all, our dragons are even pre-emptively sensing any motives or schemes our captives might be hatching, immediately informing their human counterparts who haul the offending thinkers off for brief interrogations, citing their thoughts chapter and verse right back to them. As I check in on things down below there at one point during the day, all the Morning Dawn crew are lying in their assigned bunks, as docile and passive as can be, while a Nightmare and just a single female KJK rider watch over them.

Our medical officers and corpsmen continue caring for the injured from both ships as well. Roana is putting in a lengthy shift down in Sick Bay, while I've been entrusted with a bridge watch of my own this afternoon, assisted by just a helmsman as well as a radioman at the communications console in the alcove. We're on autopilot though with no land or other traffic in the area, no expected course change, and moving so slowly at a mere ten knots that it would be hard to screw up. The helmsman nonetheless maintains a radar watch at my side as well as a plot of our progress on an electronic chart display. If it wasn't for my longstanding colonel's rank, as well as being chief, I think I would otherwise be serving this watch under the helmsman.

Amid all this busyness, Skelfa's body remains under tarps along the port side of the Drekar's flight deck, right where he passed during surgery yesterday. An honour guard is watching over him however, as well as over the human dead from both sides who are being temporarily accommodated with respect along one side of the hangar. Sometimes it is several of the KJK, sometimes just one. But our dead are never left alone while they are onboard with us.

While the remains of the Morning Dawn's fallen will be sent home via their nations' embassies in Canada, "Let Canadians see price we pay for them," Substance advises in suggesting the postponement of the funeral we are planning for our lost KJK however.

That is sounding like a good idea to Spring and I.

— — — — —

Day 30

We've dropped anchor in Baffin Island's fairly secluded Gibbs Fjord during the night while I slept—only having to break a little thin ice with our ice-strengthened bow to get comfortably inside the inlet. Fortunately our engineers and deck crew were able to coax the Morning Dawn's anchor windlass into working once more, so she is lying at anchor near us, right next to a beach in case she needs to be grounded to prevent her sinking. Upon hearing our report of her condition by radio before their arrival however, the Fredericton's skipper has convinced us to stay and assist until the Morning Dawn is decently patched for towing again. In exchange, we will be getting our fuel tanks topped off, as well as more food and supplies, plus that special delivery they've been promising.

While a storm is now howling across the ocean beyond, the Fredericton, painted in a light, almost greyish green as Canadian warships are, finally arrives at midday in our relatively placid fjord. Well protected by high, snowy mountains on virtually all sides, this place is almost like our valley back home—except that it's June here, but more resembles February or March in New Berk.

The Fredericton becomes the second naval ship and crew we take into our trust this voyage though as they come alongside and moor directly to us with large floating rubber fenders deployed in between our vessels. But as a gangway is assembled and laid between our two flight decks, the Fredericton's skipper requests that the landing platforms on both ships be cleared as the 'ultra-classified' delivery is made. "Captain's eyes only," is all he says as we leave Spring alone on out the platform as some of us watch from within our hangar.

Soon, Spring is just silently lowering his head, briefly closing his eyes as a tear forms in them. His snout stretches into a subtle smile as he then looks back towards the gangway.

Dressed in her khaki uniform with her trademark black sweater and jacket, redheaded Tyrah emerges into view as she steps onto our flight deck and kneels before him, taking Spring's large head into a heartfelt embrace. They just remain that way for a moment, communing, sharing their hearts and minds in ways perhaps unknown to the rest of us.

"Chief," Tyrah then calls, somehow knowing I wouldn't be far away as I step out from within our hangar, "there is one thing I've been wanting to do for weeks now immediately upon my return. Would you bless us as Spring and I share the Ýsa vow?"

I can only nod with a quiet but deep smile as Spring looks to Tyrah and says, "We live as one."

"We fight as one," she echoes.

"And we love as one."

"Forever," she concludes.

As the three of us stand there by ourselves on the Drekar's landing platform, I realize I am losing my son once again to his true companion. His eyes glance towards me though as he faces Tyrah, silently assuring that he won't forget me, or how we have grown together.

At a surprising loss for words to either describe or bless what is going on before me, "Blessed be," is about all I can say, just nodding once more before turning back towards Roana, Substance and Rökkr while the rest of the crew stream out of the hangar to joyously welcome Tyrah back among us. With our grown child's problem resolved though, perhaps it is time for his parents to have a bit more fun somehow.

But there is one more duty to be attended to.

— — — — —

That evening, most all of us from both the Drekar and the Fredericton assemble on a nearby rocky beach of the fjord we are sheltering in.

With the humans among us all dressed in military olive green winter parkas, Spring and the Fredericton's captain stand either side of me as we begin.

"We of Berk, and the Drekar, assemble here," I say, "to honour three of our own . . . three whose bodies we will be leaving behind, on this beach—but whose souls and spirits will sail on with us in our quest." I then nod to my son beside me, although I really don't need to.

"But," Spring continues in English for the sake of the Fredericton's crew, as well as the further practice of his own, "before we send these three to Spirit, we gather as a crew united, all of us, along with our new friends of the Fredericton, to hear the following news . . ." He then glances past me towards the frigate's skipper.

"As the senior representative present from the People of Canada and Her Majesty's Canadian Government," the Fredericton's captain says, "I convey the gratitude of a nation that is appreciative of what you, the crew of the Drekar, have done for us in rescuing four of our citizens and intercepting and capturing a smuggling vessel off our coastline.

"In recognition of your bravery, I am directed to inform you that two of your fallen commandos, Kvartermester Olsen and Fenrik Torgesen, are being nominated for the Canadian Star of Courage for their sacrifices in rescuing our citizens. Further, all three of your KJK units are being nominated for NATO Meritorious Service medals, and your friends, General Collins and Vice Admiral Tanner, are specially nominating all your wounded for American Purple Hearts, given that the ship you intercepted was reportedly bound for Boston. The Drekar and her entire crew are also being awarded your first battle and drug interdiction commendations.

"And I just have to add," he then paused, "you went out of your way to do what you did for us. Talking with your first officer on the way here, and with your captain over a late lunch today—your ship and crew answered the call from us, without expecting anything, although you have needs . . . needs that are greater than ours. I for one, hope you can find—that you are given—a second home among us. I am only a cog in a much larger, and at times bureaucratic, machine; taking orders from above for the most part. But having seen and met you today . . . I want to do whatever I can to help you all in your cause now.

"You have made friends today in myself and the crew of the Fredericton," he says. "I would encourage you to keep making friends . . . and trusting them. You are already giving the world something very special. I for one think it is time more people, if not the globe, began to know about it."

The Fredericton's skipper then simply nods, indicating he is finished.

Finally, "On behalf of the crew of the Drekar," Spring accepts with a nod on my other side, "we thank you, and are grateful for recognitions and honours you convey. And I could not agree more with what you suggest."

Certainly not wishing to disagree with my dragon son, I simply nod as Substance now steps forward beside us. She raises her head skyward and begins to hum in prayer as Rökkr leads a squad of dragons to surround Skelfa's body and the wrapped bodies of the two commandos laying on either side, who perished while raiding the Morning Dawn. Communications earlier with their Outside Berker families back home authorized us to cremate their bodies together on this far away shore.

"Ze first stepping place towards a new home," Fenrik Torgesen's mother told me by satellite telephone. "Zat is vhere my son, Hans, can continue to serve."

As the dragons breathe fire and the bodies before them begin to be consumed by flames, I glance offshore towards the Drekar. Moored beside the Fredericton, the sterns of both ships are facing us. Roana is on the Drekar's flight deck with our wounded who have been wheeled out to participate in the ceremony as best they can. She is describing what is going on to Lieutenant Kleluk as he lies bandaged from practically head to toe, raised up slightly against pillows, beside Árvekni on adjacent mobile beds.

Returning my gaze to the flames that burn on that cold, mountainous beach, I think back to Leif Erikson and the voyage he and his crew were making a thousand years ago among these same waters and lands. Our two aims seem similar, only he was seeking new lands to conquer and settle for his Norse king, Olaf Tryggvason or Olaf the First, and for Christianity, while we are simply trying to find a modest, out of the way island or cove for some of us to call home—not seeking to conquer or convert anyone . . . except maybe to friendship with us.

Somehow though, voyaging and questing in the Twenty-First Century now seems as risky and perilous as it was in the Eleventh.

As the bodies of three of our comrades are reduced to ash before me, I can only pray that their sacrifices will be worth it—that we will find a second place we can come to call home.


	54. Chapter 54

_The fanfiction we all enjoy on this site comes in many forms._

_But fanfiction of fanfiction?_

_That's just what Eyes Wide Open 2010 is doing with the story he has launched, 'An Officer and a Dragon', elsewhere on this site. An adaptation of the 1982 movie, 'An Officer and a Gentleman', which was filmed not very far from where I live, this story will explore the evaluation and screening of Spring and several human potential classmates prior to their induction into the Royal Norwegian Naval Academy in the early 1990s, under the fairly rigorous instruction of a hardened drill instructor brought in from the Outside._

_I was intrigued, even gratified, when Eyes Wide Open 2010 informed me he wanted to do his story. As I read the first chapter, it was something to see original characters and events from 'Legacy of Myth' here given further life, even through initial mention in someone else's story. It puts fanfiction in a whole new light for me, and is nothing less than an honour that I hope all of you who want to write seriously will receive at some point. While it is a somewhat different style and perspective, I am nonetheless happy to accept 'An Officer and a Dragon' as canon within the 'Taming a Heart' saga, and I encourage you to enjoy it right along with me as it unfolds._

_However, let's rejoin a somewhat older Spring and Lance as they continue their quest for an additional island for Berkers to call home. And if you like music with your reading to enhance the atmosphere, you might want to play the very first and last (or last and first) tracks from the HTTYD 2 soundtrack if you have it, as you read the upcoming commando game in this chapter. I'll admit I was listening to them as I was going through that section as well._

_Enjoy._

— _Norwesterner_

* * *

><p>Day 31<p>

It's amazing sometimes what a simple question can spark.

In our case, it was, "How did you do it?"

Both Commander Andrew MacLean, skipper of the Fredericton, and Royal Canadian Mounted Police Sergeant Gordon Rogers, leader of an embarked Marine Security Emergency Response Team—the closest thing Canadians apparently have to our KJK Coast Rangers—were asking variations of this question right from their first tour of our ship . . . after getting over the inevitable shock of seeing our dragons.

The question though related to our taking of the Morning Dawn.

"All we have aboard the Fredericton are two four metre workboat RHIBs and one aging Sea King helicopter," the RCMP sergeant says over dinner this evening, his square jaw, dark hair and moustache making him look every bit a Mountie. Learning from our initial experience with DuFont, and having shared a quiet feast barbecue for both crews out on our ships' conjoined flight decks before the evening beach funeral yesterday, Spring and I choose to host this second, more private dinner in our cabins—without any chairs this time, especially as we had invited the ostensibly enlisted sergeant to dine with those of us who are senior officers and leaders. With all five of the humans present wearing similar dress casual uniforms or civilian attire, alongside three Night Furies wearing straps of office or epaulettes, hopefully honest and open discussions would take place. As RCMP Emergency Response Teams also handle VIP protection and domestic intelligence within Canada, I thought it important that our Berk leadership establish direct relations, even friendships, with one or more of their number.

"With the gunfire you've said you were taking from them," Sergeant Rogers continues, "it would have been extremely hazardous for our team to board the Morning Dawn."

"We would likely have had to sink the ship," the more unassuming and sandy haired Commander MacLean concurs next to him, "trying to rescue the hostages as she went down, hopefully not too fast, while still having to subdue the enemy crew," he added. "But with the weapons the crew had, we would have likely sustained some damage."

"We did," Spring quietly replies, "to our KJK. I reconsidering tactical priorities and standing orders."

"You really make command decisions?" the Fredericton's skipper wondered. "It's not some symbolic or affirmative action thing? Sorry," he quickly adds, "but I can't help being curious."

I look to Spring, allowing him to answer.

"My epaulettes mean what they indicate," he says, glancing at his right shoulder and then at Tyrah, as she takes another bite of her Reindyrstek, the last of our stock of it, which we had served up for this occasion among our small gathering, along with the usual raw fish for our dragons. "Tyrah is captain in situations where Outsiders onboard—pilots, customs, those unapproved or without top-secret clearance. But otherwise, and above her, I am captain."

"And he has the full confidence of both the Berk and Norwegian governments to fulfill his responsibilities as such. Even business cards to that effect," I note, with Tyrah taking that as her cue to reach into Spring's epaulette pocket and hand them out to each of our guests.

"Den Kongelige Norske Marine. Royal Norwegian Navy," MacLean remarks reading the card she gives him, clearly impressed. "So you have citizenship, a birth certificate, and even a passport then?"

"Have no need for passport," Spring replies, "as I can't circulate on foreign shores, or in public ports of entry. Could get one though. Have photo I.D., but never use it. I am a Berk citizen, which includes Norwegian as well. I had to be issued special birth certificate, as adult, for navy paperwork however, even though we had no idea of my birth date by your calendar, or definition. Should it mean when my egg delivered, or when I hatch from it? So I assigned January One, Nineteen Sixty-Eight as birth date by default for record-keeping when I admitted to academy, even though it's all top secret. With my name though, I celebrate birthdays on first day of spring in Northern Hemisphere."

"Well," the Canadian skipper sighs, raising his eyebrows as he ponders the differences. "But most of the rest of your navy doesn't know you exist, correct?" he follows up.

"Those that have reason to, know," Spring answers. "Domestically, our responsibilities are to patrol among Berk's island territories, providing offshore security and protection, as well as dragon transport. We not often called on to work in task forces or joint exercises with others. In past we did it with naval and Coast Guard ships borrowed from Norway, where I worked my way up as mostly KJK Dragon Unit officer and then commander, as well as periodic aide de camp assignments with our flag commander. I not fit on bridges of other ships, any more than in yours on Fredericton. But I study navigation, ship handling, naval warfare and assault. Now, we have our own ship, where I do fit . . . just not in Engine Room. Dragons have no future there anyway, as we cannot handle tools. That we leave, gladly, to your kind."

We all briefly chuckle.

"Spring's senior thesis at the Norwegian Naval Academy, and work since then, led to our basic marine strategy for Berk, even to the creation of this ship," I continue, finishing my own Reindyrstek as I balance a plate on my crossed legs. "So it was a fairly natural follow-on that he became the Drekar's commander."

"But taking the Morning Dawn in just fifteen minutes," the RCMP team leader marvels, drawing us back to that topic. "It would have taken us longer, and with likely higher casualties and damage. With the kind of resistance you've described, the Fredericton would have likely had to rake and pound the Dawn's superstructure with shellfire to even allow our helicopter or small boats to get close enough to insert our commandos—who still would have been wide open to any remaining sniper fire until they would be able to take cover onboard. Descriptions are one thing, but I for one would like to see how you do what you did. I'd be truly grateful if you could give us a demonstration," he hints.

— — — — —

Day 32

" . . . Not if you vant zat rustbucket to reach Halifax," the grime-covered chief engineer of the Drekar responds the next morning to our request to re-enact our taking of the Morning Dawn, backed up in full by his counterpart from the Fredericton standing right beside him.

So we decide to do the next best thing . . . taking a nearby narrow and rocky islet in the fjord instead. Five of our KJK commandos will be acting as the island's 'enemy crew', while another team of five dragons and five deployable commandos will be seeking to quickly and smoothly take the island.

This time my family—Tyrah and Spring, Roana and Rökkr, and even myself on Substance—are getting into the act as our competing teams suit and tack up in both the Drekar's hangar and the Mission Space below.

"I lead," Spring decides as Árvekni gives him a seemingly annoyed turn of his head with large bandages still covering his eyes. While Kleluk remains in Sick Bay with his burns and wounds, our dragon KJK commander is already out of bed and up on his three remaining legs, almost seeming to shake off his injuries and limitations. Árvekni's brown-haired human Executive Officer, Løytnant Vidor Erikssen, Skelfa's former rider and companion, stands beside the maimed Night Fury, trying to unobtrusively support the dragon by leaning against him where Árvekni's missing leg would be. Clearly wishing he could be out there with us today, Árvekni will instead take Spring's role as something of a shipboard commander, coordinator and referee for our engagement, sensing us and the scenario but not seeing it.

"All due respect," Substance chimes in nearby however as I double check her saddle and other tack, "but allow your elders, last of old Dragon Knights, to keep our skills up." Spring now just silently bows his head towards her in concurrence and submission.

"Ve use paintballs, to mark casualties," one blonde male KJK commando, who will be defending the islet, insists as he hefts a paintball rifle onto one shoulder.

"Not paintballs," Tyrah whines with a sigh as she zips up her commando's snowsuit underneath her flak vest before donning her helmet. "Somehow, I always get that stuff in my hair, and it never comes out. It's bad enough that my dragon is dragging me back into combat again, even if it is an exercise."

"Pass me ze hostage," the KJK commando continues however, seeming to ignore the protestations of his superior officer.

"He standing next to you," Spring notes as one of our KJK boat team members who has volunteered for this, stands ready to go, dressed in heavy green battle dress and flak vest to stand out from his 'captors'.

"Ze other one," the opposing commando presses however, holding out a hand.

"You be careful with that," Spring warns as Tyrah tosses the commando what is still Spring's most precious possession . . . his soccer ball.

"Zis vill keep you from blasting me too forcefully," the commando smiles with almost a villainous glee. With the old and very well used ball tucked in his arm, he turns and hops up onto a Nadder as the other defenders, wearing white snowsuits and flak vests, mount and even double up on dragons as well. Along with the two hostages, they take off from the flight deck and open Mission Space below for the short flight to the islet lying about a kilometre off the sterns of the Drekar and Fredericton.

"Blast?" RCMP Sergeant Rogers openly queries however, dressed in his own unit's black combat kit and helmet, balancing on his knees as he attempts to enter the commando sling underneath Substance that she is wearing this time.

"You wanted a full demonstration," I smile as I help him into the sling.

"Don't worry," Substance assures above us. "I blast Lannce at times in exercises, even deliberately. He still here."

"It's only one of the things I'm worried about," Rogers sighs as I cinch the last strap tightly under his legs, "flying suspended underneath a dragon who—" he says, stopping himself however.

"Can't see?" Substance finishes as I rise to mount her saddle. "Lannce and I still best in the air. That why we invite you to ride with us."

"Not against us," Roana challenges, already astride Rökkr as the Fredericton's commander, wearing his arctic parka, is sitting more comfortably in Rökkr's saddle behind my mate where I once sat eons ago. "Come on Rökkr, let's go!"

"Wait," Árvekni countermands though, raising his head towards the islet off our stern, sensing the situation off our stern. "Opponents not in position."

"Yes, Kapteinløytnant," my mate sighs. "I could order you back to bed though."

"Only through Medical Officer, who approved limited release," the still partly-bandaged Night Fury almost smugly notes.

"Not limited enough," Roana retorts.

"Team ready?" the injured Night Fury questions nonetheless.

"Ready," Substance answers as the senior dragon present, assessing and even polling our team through sensing alone.

Along with our family of three Night Furies, there is the other KJK Night Fury who had distinguished herself in the attack on the Morning Dawn—a løytnant named Fathom by her female rider and companion, Løytnant Kari Stigen. All of our Dragons and Riders are now officers in the KJK, as any naval aviators would be. Only our two KJK boat teams have non-commissioned ratings among them, drawn from the ranks of Outside Berkers. But when I had asked about Fathom's English name earlier as I was getting to know our teammates, the blonde Løytnant Stigen replied, "If I named her in Norse, I'd have to choose between fathom as 'skilja' or understanding, or 'fatmur' as in ze length. But inspired by how you named Substance, vith 'Fathom' in English, I get both meanings. She is both a nautical and very understanding Night Fury. It is an elegant name for her—attractive to ze ear, the vay she is to za eyes. Ve hope she vill be za first female dragon ship captain some day." Fathom was looking down with uncharacteristic modesty as her rider was saying that.

"Being a leader, Fathom," I encouraged, "is being proud of what you want to achieve. You are already a very skilled guardian. Now you just need to be confident of both your abilities and your desires, and share that confidence with others, just like I am with you. Then I have no doubt you will earn command. I'll look forward to sailing on your ship someday."

Fathom bowed her slightly more slender and attractive head in deep gratitude, but was still saying nothing.

Then there is also our one KJK Gronkle present, Løytnant Tankur or 'Tank', who is warmly named by his companion for the dragon's obvious similarity to the military vehicles.

We now all move however out onto the Drekar's flight deck, standing ready for launch. Crews from both ships are gathering out on the landing platforms of the Fredericton and Drekar as well to watch.

While soccer has become one of our primary games back on our home island, as well as dragon racing long before that—commando games like this are the sport we modern dragon guardians have come to truly relish, especially since the FSK, and later the KJK, have taken over the defence of our tribe. Testing Dragon and Rider to the fullest, even I have come to enjoy these exercises right along with Substance as demonstrations of our prowess and skill together in the air, even perhaps a primal assertion of our right to still lead our people and tribe.

Only Vikings might think this way, but I've been one for thirty-one of my sixty-five years now. _Sixty-five? Yikes! Don't even think that, Ýsa,_ I counsel myself as I sit astride Substance, ready for take-off. Sergeant Rogers is suspended face down underneath us, having no choice but to basically stare at the black deck we stand ready upon that is less than a half metre in front of him.

Finally, the word comes. Having limped outside onto the Drekar's flight deck with the help of his X.O., Árvekni simply issues a sharp, loud bark that echoes across the fjord we're in. Launch or begin. Either way, it means the same thing in Dragon, and is one word I do not need a translation for.

Substance and I vault into the air together, with the somewhat nervous RCMP sergeant suspended underneath us in his commando's sling. Having done this for three decades now, Substance and I tune in, bringing our minds together and acting as one. I see for us, while she senses most everything else. It makes my vision perception go a little weird, almost tunnel-like. But I now perceive not only her thoughts, but through her, the thoughts of the others. I can even sense their presences and relative positions around us, as white, ghostly outlines in my mind.

As our team fans out and approaches the islet, sure enough, paintballs start flying towards us—not a lot of them, but some. _Focus, Ýsa,_ I mentally tell myself, as it's been a while since I've done this. I find my visual acuity improving, now able to see the brightly-coloured little balls better than I normally would as they streak, arcing through the air towards us. The wings at our shoulders now help Substance and I to twist and dodge, rise and dip, avoiding these small projectiles. It is as easy as if I were twisting my outspread hands in the wind, contracting and spreading my fingers to control our flight.

_Become one with the scene,_ Substance silently coaches me _. . . and explain it to our guest._

It's a lot to keep track of—the rest of the team around us, dodging paintballs, the relative position of the islet, and locating its defenders that we have to subdue. _Harmony,_ Substance reminds me.

That's the key, how it all becomes one, even inside me. I take a deep breath as I surrender to the chatter of thoughts, images and sensations around us in the air. I allow it to become one with myself—a unified, multi-faceted hum. It's another reason the dragons hum in prayer. The hum, this harmony, is the basis, even portal to everything among them, when they tap into it.

_Speak to him,_ my Night Fury reminds me as we almost dance in the air around the occasional paintball. My eyes now automatically locate them without conscious thought while we mentally draw with the others into almost a unified hand or dome that begins to surround the islet. It is like we are a small orchestra now, with each Dragon and Rider having their own parts to play, even their own improvisations, within the overall harmony.

Not all riders and companions achieve this depth and disciplined unity with their dragons. But with Substance, and practice, I have.

"We are . . ." I struggle to say. It's almost like having to relearn how to walk and chew gum at the same time. I just naturally find myself wanting to simply echo the multifaceted yet concordant hum that is now coursing powerfully through both Substance and myself. While it's somewhat akin the static you hear on old dial-up modems of computers shaking hands and exchanging data, this harmony sounds and feels a heck of a lot nicer. It's soothing, melodious, even fluid.

"We are," I try to say again, going into translation mode as I piece together a narrative in English from all that is being conveyed and accomplished through the mental hum, " . . . some of us are going to distract and make strafing runs firing concussive blasts, while the first commandos are dropped and inserted at the most protected locations they can be on the islet."

As I speak, Fathom and Spring are already firing concussive blasts as they swoop low behind some large rocks at either end of the islet's high central ridge. The commandos who are riding and suspended beneath them, including Tyrah, smoothly detach and drop behind those same rocks, starting to fire their own paintballs in return. They take out one of the 'enemy crew' in the first volley, splattering day glow orange on his left shoulder, while other crew attempt to recover from the dragons' stunning blasts and continue firing at the rest of us.

"Amazing," Sergeant Rogers quietly enthuses beneath me. "Four inserted, one enemy eliminated, and the rest briefly stunned . . . just like that." Substance and I take our own strafing run while he is saying this, with my dragon firing as we bank and quickly rise away from the islet.

Seeming to up the stakes, a larger paintball is now fired near us, towards the two ships. Through Substance, I can sense heat from this one. Before I can even think to say anything, we react together, firing a tight blast that destroys it with a splash of orange paint and fire in the air.

"Rocket paintballs?" I quickly wonder afterwards as we turn again.

"Thought you knew about those," my dragon replies under me. "Paintballs taped on flares. Enemy uses them to endanger ships. They only rigged up a few though for this simulation."

"Duck!" I say out loud as we sense the heat from another rocket paintball rapidly nearing us from the side. As one, we dip and turn, firing another tight blast that destroys that paintball as well.

"Wow!" Rogers continues to enthuse from underneath Substance's neck as we turn again, gaining some more altitude now. "But I'd like to give this a try and insert. You just pull this strap to release, right?"

"Careful—" I began to caution. But with a panicked yell, the sergeant is already dropping away from us, falling right towards some particularly nasty-looking rocks amid the fjord below. Making a strong beat of our wings before I can even sigh, I just twist Substance's whole body into a sharp dive. We draw her wings in tightly as we pass the flailing and more wind-resisting RCMP sergeant. Substance and I then arc into level flight once more as the sergeant falls right into my arms. We swoop away, just a couple metres above the rocks.

"You wanna jump?" I forcefully tell our astonished guest as I cradle him. "You do it when we tell you to!" Gripping my legs around Substance's saddle and neck tightly, I have her powerfully flip her neck upwards, helping me to toss the sergeant back into the air. My dragon and I then take a lightning-fast dip and half snap roll underneath him. Substance grabs Rogers again by the shoulders between her front paws while also grabbing his legs with her hind paws as we do another half snap roll to bring ourselves upright once more.

I sense Rökkr and Roana swooping nearby. Without even pausing to think, _Distract!_ I mentally direct Rökkr. Having us gain altitude once more with powerful beats of her wings, I take Substance into a sharp corkscrew turn and then an attack dive towards the circle of rocks on the islet's top that is the 'bridge' or heart of the enemy's position. Rökkr takes Roana and MacLean into a swift, sweeping arc past the islet's far side, dipping and rolling to dodge several paintballs fired at them. Substance and I attack from behind, giving the sergeant his wish as we drop him right against the enemy's backs, causing Spring's soccer ball to suddenly pop upwards from among the surprised enemy team.

Taking Substance into a tight quarter roll less than two metres above the ridge beside the enemy's position, I grab the ball as we then bank sharply to the right, while also agreeing with Rökkr to have him grab the human 'hostage' as the remaining four enemy try to scramble back upright from beneath Sergeant Rogers.

I can sense Árvekni in the background within the harmony, but he is choosing not to intervene or give orders.

As Rökkr smoothly grabs the KJK volunteer behind us, peeling off in the other direction with him,_ Got hostages,_ I then mind-call through the harmony to the other dragons around us. _Let 'em have it._

All of our dragons then turn in the air. Having inserted his rider onto the islet as well, Tankur now circles beyond, not able to safely fire concussive blasts himself directly against our opponents as we gave up using hand-held wooden shields ages ago. Our Night Furies though swoop down towards the island in screaming attack dives from all four points of the compass, firing slightly stronger concussive blasts that stun the enemy team once more—including the visiting sergeant this time—as they collapse against the rocks that had been shielding them.

One, two, three, four in quick succession, we soar low right over the enemy's position in opposite directions, intersecting like a crack jet fighter demonstration team as we then brake in the air and turn 'round again, all coordinated with thought.

Landing Substance atop the islet's highest grassy knoll facing the circle, I hold the ball high aloft, signifying our victory for all to see. The rest of our dragon and human team surrounds the enemy, paintball rifles aimed and dragon mouths opened, causing our opponents to raise their hands in surrender as they come to again.

"That is how we Berkers play ball," I smile to the sergeant as he strains to rise to his feet again in front of us amid our opponents.

Tucking the ball back in my right arm, Substance and I come off the intensity of simulated combat, and the power of the communal link. For a moment, I feel a disorienting dizziness as I sit in Substance's saddle. Even as I endeavour to mentally disengage from the link, I can feel Substance turning her head back towards me with concern.

"It's nothing," I try to assure as I blink and refocus my eyes, looking around while maintaining a steadying grip on the saddle with my left hand. "Just the harmony."

"Maybe fully engaging is too powerful for humans, as some say in our past," my dragon seems to agree. "Amund occasionally have similar symptoms. Sorry I push you so hard into it, over time."

"I pushed you, originally," I remind her as I soothe my brow with my left hand, "when I took us both for a swim off the carrier years ago, remember?"

"You alright?" Substance replies though.

"It's clearing," I say as the dizziness and moderate pain with it seem to ease.

"No more linking for present," my dragon prescribes though. "Take you back for nap."

"Substance," I quietly groan in protest as my left hand continues to massage my brow though.

"Either that, or Sick Bay exam," she threatens.

"No," I clearly countermand. "You know how concerned Roana already is about my health, and the staff in Sick Bay have enough other patients to deal with in the aftermath of our real battle."

"Nap," Substance maintains. "I just as concerned about you as Roana, and I not sense you having headache and dizzy spell like this before," she continues, obviously mind-probing me to an extent.

"Just a nap, please," I finally give in. "Besides, Sick Bay already has some new patients to deal with," I note, seeing Tankur now having brought a field medic to treat at least one sprained or broken arm incurred among our KJK who had been posing as the enemy crew on the islet.

"Next time, ze rest of you play opposition," the once cocky KJK commando team leader groans as he rises to his feet amid the circle of rocks, removing his white, fabric-covered helmet as he rubs the back of his neck.

"Amazing . . ." the RCMP sergeant says once more as he stands beside the commando, still seeming to recover his equilibrium as well.

_See, Substance?_ I mentally note to her as I look at Sergeant Rogers. _He's even more roughed up than I am._

"Nap," she maintains anyway, causing me to weakly gesture with my left hand to the sergeant to rejoin us for the trip back to our ships . . . just in the saddle behind me this time.

— — — — —

Substance and I then fly Rogers back to the Drekar and Fredericton, and are soon bidding him adieu as he seems quite ready for a nap as well.

"Sorry we blasted you," I apologise as we part for the afternoon at the gangway between our two ships, "and that I was a little short with you."

"Being stun-blasted by a dragon," he now subtly smiles, rubbing his own head with his black commando's helmet off. "It's one thing I'll never forget now, along with flying. You might want to work on those hair-trigger release straps though."

"We'll look into that," I smile as my dragon begins quietly steering me towards the Drekar's large hangar doorway and rest with her right wing gently extended around my back.

"Nice piece of flying," my mate is soon complimenting Substance and I as we step inside the hangar. She is already relieving Rökkr of his saddle while other riders are doing the same for their dragon companions as well. "But maybe let Rökkr and I handle the daredevils next time. You okay?" she invariably queries though, even with just a glance towards me.

"Fine," I assure, finding myself rubbing my still somewhat dizzy head with my left hand while realizing my right arm is still cradling Spring's soccer ball. "Just a little out of shape. Haven't flown or linked like that in a while."

"That's all it is?" she says, coming up to me with Rökkr's saddle on her arm, her eyes already scanning my face for any other symptoms.

"All it is," I assure, quietly rebelling against even the hint of any further signs of aging besides my greying hair. "Substance has already prescribed a nap for me, and I have our family 'heirloom' to get back onto its pillow beside Spring's bedding.

"Wouldn't want to interfere with that," my mate now smiles as we share a brief kiss. "I just pledged to put in a late lunch relief shift in Sick Bay for the Medical Officer, and I'll join you for a nap myself before long. Keep a spot warm for me."

"I will," I reply as we part, my head still a little dizzy. I don't think to even take Substance's saddle off however until we're inside our quarters.

— — — — —

Day 33

The nap on the afternoon of Day 32 turns into a full-on sleep for at least me. Even Roana and Rökkr joining us doesn't wake me. We wind up sleeping through any kind of dinner though, and when I wake up for a bathroom break later, everyone else is asleep, and dinner can just become breakfast. Even though we are truly in the land of 'midnight sun' now, with the sun above the horizon around us twenty-four hours a day, the window polarization in our quarters makes it nicely dark and feeling like the 1 AM local time it is.

There's not that much to look at out the windows anyway at the moment however. With the two ships moored together, the Drekar's starboard bridge deck, where our cabins are, is only a few metres from the Fredericton's port bridge deck. Our view is thusly divided between a blank charthouse bulkhead abaft the Fredericton's bridge, and a gap forward of her dominating, square grey funnel, its flat front edge generously grilled with a large air intake. Mountain views or seascapes can be viewed through this gap, depending on which direction our ships are swinging at anchor.

As I tiptoe back to my own spot among the sleeping mass of human and dragon family from my midnight bathroom break though, it's nice to see Spring once more sleeping curled up around Tyrah, with even a foreleg draped across her.

Waking again later, rested and at peace, I sit up against a quietly snoring Substance and catch up on this journal for a while before the others begin stirring. I've never minded my dragon snoring, as it's really more like purring—very soothing. I rarely have trouble sleeping against her as that deep purring, resonating through her large body, just gently vibrates me to sleep. Once everyone is up, during breakfast, Roana seems to remain concerned that I would sleep so heavily through the afternoon and night. I remind her though I've always been a heavy sleeper, and it's been a busy few days.

Today goes quietly though as another Arctic storm passes around our sheltered Baffin Island fjord, and our combined crews from both the Drekar and Fredericton finish making the Morning Dawn ready for her tow to Halifax.

Roana, Rökkr, Tyrah, Spring, Substance and I pay another visit amid the falling snow however to what I now think of as Skelfa's beach, laying a final bouquet of flowers upon the ashen spot where he and his two KJK teammates were cremated.

"Let's install a plaque somewhere on the Drekar," I decide as Roana and I extend an arm around one another, "complete with their images and stories, remembering them for who they were. There's no real point in laying a marker here. They died miles away, and never saw this spot in life. No one would likely visit here anyway . . . at least who could probably know anything about Skelfa," I sigh as I look around the seemingly lifeless and barren shore. "Log this location though, Spring, down to the metre . . . for posterity."

"Yes, Father," he replies, soberly gazing upon this new piece of hallowed ground for us alongside me.

— — — — —

Day 34

The sun is now shining on this cold, crisp morning as our two crews finally bid farewell to one another.

"I hope you will be regular visitors around these parts," Commander MacLean warmly says to me as we shake hands a final time at the gangway between our two flight decks. "With what you all can do, we could certainly use the help."

"The Morning Dawn's crew is now drugged onboard your ship, right?" I double-check.

"Your Medical Officer was supervising the injections a short while ago himself," the skipper confirms, "saying something about pushing it with the tripled doses, but doing it nonetheless. Two of your Outside Guardians are now onboard with us to give the Morning Dawn's crew explanations as they wake up as to how they came to be onboard our ship, involving stun grenades apparently. We've had to clear out an enlisted berthing area for them and post 'Do Not Disturb' signs, all according to their instructions, but we'll make it work."

"Under my team's guard," Sergeant Rogers adds beside us.

"Our ambassador and a team with her will meet you in Halifax to work with you in processing the crew, and the ship," I assure.

"With dragons though, the term Mounted Police could take on a whole new meaning," the sergeant smiles as I now shake hands with him as well. "Might have to have a word with my inspector, maybe even the Commissioner about this."

"Please go through DuFont," I quietly urge though. "Actually," I decide, "please let my ambassador handle such an idea. It might eventually be useful for both our interests, but it will have to be handled carefully . . . _very_ carefully. We will keep you in mind though for such a joint MSERT unit with us, Sergeant, I promise."

"Thank you, sir," Rogers accepts. "But Bernard DuFont, the Deputy Prime Minister?" he picks up however.

"He is our primary contact within Canada," I reply.

"More than the Prime Minister?" the sergeant adds in almost disbelief.

"The P.M. is not cleared," I quietly emphasize.

"Politics and the old, 'loose lips,' eh?" Rogers surmises.

"You got it," I confirm. "We've had similar problems with a few Norwegian prime ministers at times. That's why we tend to go through civil service channels. They know how to keep secrets, across multiple governments. It avoids the possibility of dragons becoming political pawns or weapons for any side in inter-party squabbles, or during campaigns. Here's my card," I add, belatedly passing both Rogers and MacLean my own business cards. "Just email me as you want, to keep in touch . . . perhaps rather than talking with DuFont?" I hint.

"Hmmm," the sergeant muses looking at my card, "never had a direct channel like this to the top at Ottawa before though."

"Use it wisely, and only for the dragons. Because," I soberly request, glancing back at some of our saurian brethren, "if any of us screws up . . . they could die."

That seems to get the attentions of both the commander and the sergeant as they quietly nod to me.

"And that reminds me," I add, "please tell your crew again, no dragon pictures. I am sure our Outside Guardians will be fairly insistent about that as well, both with you, and upon arrival in Halifax."

"We'll take good care of your ship, and your secret," MacLean assures me. "Just wish you could spare an engineer or two to help keep the Morning Dawn afloat during the voyage."

"Vorking the vay we have been, I could spare my junior," the Drekar's Chief Engineer chimes in near us, having evidently just been dropped off on the flight deck with his toolbox by dragon after performing a final check of our captured ship.

"Clear it with the captain—" I begin towards our Chief Engineer. "Never mind, I'll do it," I countermand however, briefly closing my eyes as I mind-message Spring directly, not seeing him at the moment. "Sorry," I then apologise, "I'm not close enough to my own dragon to sense a reply from him," as MacLean and Rogers both give me slightly strange looks.

Spring catches my message though. "You may take Vassen," he replies, coming up behind us. "We want him back though . . . Vassen!" Spring then calls as our red-headed, junior engineering officer is conveniently crossing the flight deck behind us towards the hangar with his own toolbox, having also just been brought back by dragon from the rusty ship in question not far off our stern.

"Ja, Kaptein?" he replies in Bokmål.

"You are needed aboard Morning Dawn," my dragon son directs. "Pack your gear and be ready for return by dragon in fifteen minutes. If you need assistant, pick rating from your department," he adds, glancing towards the Drekar's Chief Engineer who merely nods in concurrence. "Congratulations, Fenrik, Morning Dawn is now your first command. Your mission is to see her safely to Halifax behind Fredericton. Good luck, Captain."

"Sir . . ." the astonished junior engineer now responds in English. "I . . . It's just like Horatio Hornblower!" he exclaims, having obviously been a fan of the C. S. Forester stories.

"Go. Pack," my dragon son has to remind the eager junior officer, with a smile however. "We're waiting."

"Y-Yes, sir!" the junior engineer salutes as Spring nods deeply in reply, before Vassen rushes off towards the hangar.

"Always wanted to do that," Spring notes with amusement as we watch the newly-minted captain go. "Tyrah!" he then calls to his companion not far away. "I just appoint Vassen as captain of Morning Dawn. Note it in log and give him spare Berk standard to hoist, so Canadians don't seize our prize from us," he then jokes, looking towards MacLean.

"Yes sir," Tyrah smiles nearby as she also turns to head for the hangar, and presumably the ship's flag locker.

"Humour, too?" the Fredericton's skipper almost marvels.

"I everything you are, Commander," my dragon son replies, "just with black scales and wings. Both our species have tails—yours has just unfortunately shrunk. We dragons try not to pity your kind over it though."

"Captain," the Fredericton's skipper smiles as he gives a farewell salute, given that Spring has half a gold stripe more on his epaulettes than MacLean does. My dragon son then nods deeply again in return. "We will rendezvous with you on your return transit," MacLean proposes though, "whether you have to put into Halifax, or we have to divert at sea, agreed?"

"Agreed," Spring gladly concurs. "Our ships and crews now kindred. Keepers of a common secret, even vision."

Exchanging ships' crests and small national ensigns for display in each other's mess spaces as a final act of fraternity, the gangway is finally removed from between our two flight decks, and the Fredericton slips her mooring lines from the Drekar. As the large rubber fenders are pulled up along her port side, the Canadian frigate slowly moves away, taking up the slack on the Morning Dawn's tow lines behind her.

Spring and I move to the Drekar's bridge, and with the window polarizing off, we waive to the Fredericton's skipper and the RCMP sergeant as firm friends now. Then, as the Morning Dawn begins to pass us, we hear that ship's single midrange horn belt out three long if uneven blasts, followed by one short one, in salute while her proud young skipper waives from the port bridge wing.

"Return salute," Spring orders with a subtle smile. Tyrah then hits the large red button on the centre panel, causing the Drekar's far more melodious quintet of horns to sound three long blasts, and one short as well, in reply.

As the second ship in our 'fleet' slowly moves in front of us toward the open sea, a brand new Berk standard can now be seen waiving over her rust-covered stern, even though the ship's home port beneath still says 'Monrovia', referring to her supposed Liberian identity.

"We should pick port of registry for our fleet," my son notes, seeing the same thing I am.

"How 'bout I just leave that to you," I sigh with raised eyebrows. "I don't have the foggiest on that score."

— — — — —

Soon raising our anchor, we also get underway once more. As the Drekar begins to move forward again for the first time in almost a week, I find myself acutely aware of what, or rather who, we are leaving behind. There is perhaps an ingrained Berker sense in me that we don't leave our dead alone. Back home, they remain close to our island and even village, both spiritually and even physically. Yet in this case we are leaving three of our own here, far from New Berk or the Barony and anyone who would remember them.

I move across the bridge to the glass-enclosed port wing, facing Skelfa's beach as I lower my head in prayer, almost apologising that we are indeed leaving him and his two companions behind. Maybe we should have gathered their ashes, kept them with us, even scattering them back at home sometime later, I consider.

"You very dragon, Father," Spring notes as he comes next to me, having clearly sensed what was on my mind.

"Thank you," I quietly appreciate, as it is a high compliment among the dragons. "I still talk with the old Árvekni and Roald at times, out at the cliff beyond the village," I then say as we both gaze at the beach. "A sort of counselling among chiefs and elders, even across time. I even say hi to Tvö Höffut as I pass his field. I can do that because I know they are there. Acknowledging, even communing with our ancestors, those who came before us, is part of who we are.

"But we won't be doing that with Skelfa, Olsen or Torgesen," I continue as a tear unavoidably falls from my eye, " . . . because we're leaving them here."

"You know where Baffin is from home, don't you?" My dragon son asks.

"Yeah?" I cautiously reply.

"You simply have to look at horizon, instead of down into sea," he continues as we both look at the passing shore. "They just as close, really. To Spirit, distance is an illusion, not real."

"You sure you're not Substance's offspring?" I wonder. "Because that's just what she'd advise."

"Family is greatest reality of all," Spring says as he now looks at the beach with me, "especially one of choice and adoption, as you never take them for granted. I am of Substance, and I am of you . . . because you both, you all, love me.

"That, more than anything," he quietly notes, "prepare me to be Tyrah's true companion, to see her and I for what we are together. But," Spring adds, "I keep Skelfa, Olsen and Torgesen among our crew. They just on patrol, above us, keeping watch. I will listen for their reports, just as you listen for guidance from previous Árvekni, Roald, and others. All we leave behind here is ash from a fire, not who they are. That, and they, continue with us."

"Thank you . . . Son," I sniff, laying my right hand upon his large head with profound gratitude. Together, we watch as that beach now disappears behind a steep mountainside, being allowed to return to the quiet, ageless wilderness it has long been part of.

— — — — —

Once we're out in the relatively calm open ocean once more, the Drekar is gradually turned north by northwest as the Fredericton and Morning Dawn disappear over the horizon behind us to the south. Spring orders the Drekar secured for sea as a new bridge watch takes over.

There is one piece of business we could really use the advice of Skelfa and his comrades on however, as my dragon son then convenes a meeting to review our assault on the Morning Dawn. Unlike what is done onboard Outsider warships, Spring chooses to hold this gathering in the ship's large lower berthing area forward, now that our captives from the Morning Dawn have left onboard the Fredericton, inviting anyone who wants to attend.

"I been thinking about what happened with Morning Dawn," he opens as the rest of us sit on floor mattresses and bunks around him. "I know our KJK motto is, 'Nothing gets past us.' Even I not want to see Drekar so much as dented.

"But I not sure that dragon and human cost of that motto and attitude is worth it," Spring notes. "Ship can be repaired, even take pounding, far more easily than crew can. Skelfa . . . he treat rocket as if he was deflecting ball. I mind-urge him not to engage, not to fire so close, after Árvekni already been stricken. But Skelfa was treating it both as sport, and absolute rule that nothing touch Drekar. He surprised at how much he was hurt as he fell into sea after rocket exploded. Our drills not prepare or warn him of severity of such weapons.

"Maybe it time we allow ship to protect us, as much as we protect ship. What you think?" he asks everyone else, regardless of rank. "As at least one of us present only speak English," he added, referring to Lieutenant Kleluk, "I appreciate if that language used."

"We know risks," Árvekni responds.

"I knew what I was doing, when I led that squad down inside the Morning Dawn," Kleluk adds as he lies upon a mobile bed beside Árvekni. "Death? If it came, I pretty much knew it would be quick. Living like this," he said, holding up and looking at his heavily bandaged left hand, "that's the tough part right now. I'm accepting what happened though, not regretting it. If I was Skelfa . . . I'd still fire on, even catch that rocket. Because it'd be just me, not a dozen or more of you, on the bridge or anywhere else on this ship. Having suggested what became our motto the day we caught that torpedo . . . I still believe in that motto. It's something no other ship or team I've served with has. It makes us unique."

"Us," I muse to Anuun. "You want citizenship? A permanent transfer?"

"Knowing what I look like under these bandages . . . I don't want to go home, sir," he openly replies. "I know that no matter how I emerge from this, the dragons and crew here will accept me. I'll work supply, even the galley if I can't do anything more. But heck, the way Árvekni and I both are, I think we will make a pretty good team. Even though I am Iñupiat, proudly so . . . this is one team, and tribe, I just don't want to leave now. If my burns and scars are my ticket in, well, that would make this worthwhile."

"Captain?" I invite.

"We discuss details later," Spring replies. "But welcome onboard, Løytnant. Árvekni?"

"Our two broken halves make one strong whole," the maimed Night Fury affirms. "He my rider, and companion . . . if you want, Anuun."

Kleluk just reaches his bandaged right hand as Árvekni turns his head to meet it with his snout. Somehow, Anuun already seems to know how inseparable, even sacred, such a bonding is among us.

"You are Berker," I quietly proclaim, rising to my feet as chief, "and Dragon and Rider. Welcome," as respectful and admiring applause, along with gentle, approving dragon roars resonate around us.

As the brief celebratory recognition quiets down once more, "Anyone else?" Spring finally invites. "Should our KJK motto stand?"

"Yes," . . . "Já," and affirmative dragon replies are the unvarying response.

"Very well. Motto stands," Spring accepts, seeming to be a more democratic and inclusive leader than even I am. "That leaves one more issue. While Árvekni will eventually return to full duties, we need new KJK dragon field leader, in Skelfa's place."

"I request Tankur as field leader," Árvekni responds. "He senior dragon under me. He due."

"Mmee?" the Gronkle responds with a deep but astonished voice. "My kind always support, never lead."

"Leading, change," the KJK dragon commander notes. "Captain lead from bridge, not at head of force. Even I cannot keep track of all, and fight at same time. Our leaders could resist arrows and spears at front in past, but not cannon or rocket. Leaders sometimes lead best when they see all, both sides engaging, not just what's in front of them. Tankur can lead in field without being fastest, or always in front."

I can see that such thinking would likely have been heresy in prior Berk generations—even mine, really, as Substance and I had led from the front in our counter-assault against the Soviets years ago. Perhaps that would be the last time it was done, I now reflect, also thinking of old newsreel footage I'd once seen of Polish cavalry officers charging on warhorses at the heads of their brigades as they were mown down by Nazi machine guns and Panzer tanks at the start of World War II.

I feel a gentle nudge from Substance beside me.

"Sorry," I quietly apologise as the orderly discussion continues around us. "Shouldn't be dwelling there," knowing she is sensing those same thoughts and images within me.

"You know I love you, and our people, enough to not regret doing that," she murmurs, her clouded, blind eyes staring in no particular direction. "At time, there was no other option. If ours was the final charge of the old order, the old ways . . . I could not be more gratified."

I press beside my dragon tightly, even briefly burying my face against her neck. This will always be a raw, emotional wound for the two of us.

— — — — —

Day 35

We begin our westward transit of the Northwest Passage, entering forty mile wide Lancaster Sound this morning. There are icebergs and sheets of ice in places, but nothing blocking our intended course. Current satellite images confirm the passage is easily clear enough for us to traverse. The Drekar still flies the Canadian flag from the starboard yardarm of her one mast as a courtesy in our recognition of their sovereignty over this somewhat disputed waterway.

The dragons though collectively sense a large school of Arctic Cod off our starboard side. So the ship is slowed, and fish runs are on in earnest. Both the hangar as well as stern and starboard Mission Space portals are opened as most all the dragons stream out in pursuit of fresh fish, and this chance to add to our food stocks as well. I am just grateful that I remembered to ask Sergeant Rogers by radio after we parted yesterday to fax us a commercial fishing permit, given how much fish I realized we might be taking at times within Canadian waters to keep our dragons properly fed.

"Glad to," he radioed back when I suggested he have it processed through DuFont's office, to avoid questions from the Canadian Ministry of Fisheries and Oceans as to why a supposedly Norwegian naval patrol ship needs a commercial fishing license. "Gives me a chance to pitch DuFont for bigger RHIBs, like yours."

I just let him run with it. The permit was faxed to us within hours.

"No," Substance tells me though as I offer to go with her on this fish run amid the excitement, not even letting me put her saddle on her. "Water too cold. Too much of a shock for you . . . even with survival suit," she catches as I just begin to form an image of one in my mind.

Rökkr roars outside on the flight deck though, beckoning with his head if she's coming. He isn't wearing his saddle either, just his Guardian's strap around his neck. This seems to be a 'dragons only' affair as all of us riders are being left behind.

Our family's two senior Night Furies then take off from the flight deck amid the small swarm of other dragons intent on catching fish.

Only Árvekni is remaining on the flight deck near the open hangar portal, looking with a degree of longing, even seemingly through his eye bandages, as others do what he cannot right now. Roana is rolling out his rider and companion beside him on a mobile bed once again though, which seems to temper the dragon's melancholy. Árvekni turns his large, black head as he carefully nudges his companion's bandaged upper arm and shoulder.

As even Spring takes off past us without Tyrah onboard, Roana just comes around, nestling close as she extends both arms around me from the side amid our thick parkas this cold, overcast morning.

"Well, I finally get you dragon-free for a moment," she quips as I extend an arm warmly around her as well. "First time since Halifax."

"It's what we do in life," I sigh. Unexpectedly, I now experience a momentary twinge of dizziness, even though I'm not mind-linked into the harmony. But with Roana peacefully enjoying a moment, relaxing against me, the last thing I want to do is upset it all and have her haul me off to Sick Bay for another exam. She's been whipping out her med kit, at least her stethoscope, at most every ache I've been confessing for practically the last decade now.

_Probably another T.I.A., _or Trans Ischemic Attack, I dismiss. It's a stroke-like but temporary disturbance within the brain, and usually a minor issue. I once had a more serious form of dizziness a few years ago when just Roana and I were stopping over at Gunnar's farm for a couple days on our way to Oslo for both affairs of state and pleasure. No sooner had I put my hand to my head, wobbled even a little, and admitted to Roana what was going on as she turned towards me however, than I was finding myself packed into the back seat of a car and subsequently laid out horizontally inside a CAT Scan machine at the Ørland base hospital. Sure enough, they could find nothing wrong and it was ruled to be a T.I.A. I was discharged a few hours later from the hospital with prescriptions that made me feel even more wonky than I had been when I went in. That, and many other seemingly pointless episodes caused me to start just shutting up about the minor things I was feeling.

It can be a mixed blessing having a physician in the family at times, especially as one ages. But I refuse to be treated like an old codger, stuffed with never-ending supplies of multi-coloured pills, any sooner than absolutely necessary! Even then, I'm of half a mind to ask Substance to just run us both into a cliff if she's ready to go as well.

Fortunately right now, Substance is focused on flying beside Rökkr, and Árvekni doesn't know to tune in as he sits on the flight deck beside me . . . I hope.

I try to put it all out of my mind, just focusing on the feel of Roana's braided blonde and silver head against my cheek as we peacefully watch the dragons swarm and dive for fish. Curiously however, I see Rökkr pulling out of a dive with Substance, just as they start it, barking at her.

"He doesn't want her diving for fish," I surmise aloud as my mate and I watch.

Roana just closes her eyes though. "Let her fish," she quietly breathes to Rökkr with both her mouth and mind. "She can sense them, too."

It makes me wonder how much Roana can tune into the harmony as I can't help glancing down at her closed eyes.

I just kiss the side of her forehead though as she instinctively tightens her embrace of me. "Roana . . ." I murmur amid my kiss on her temple, almost ready to confess my mild dizziness.

"What . . . ?" she softly replies.

The dizziness is gone now though. "I love you," I simply say instead.

"I love you, too," she warmly says. Her hand reaches up for the side of my face as we draw one another into a kiss. I find myself opening, even to the harmony, amid that kiss. Through Substance, perhaps through Árvekni beside us for all I know, I can sense, even see Roana's beating heart and life essence inside my mind, with vague, ghostly impressions of the blood coursing out through her veins. My perception and skills are continuing to grow, deepening my appreciation and love of her all the more.

"Substance has fish," I quietly smile as our lips remain connected. Roana just sighs warmly as she takes us into a deeper, second round of kissing.

This is life.

— — — — —

A short while later, with the dragons well-sated and our fish lockers filled, "Chief Ýsa, your presence requested on flight deck. Chief Ýsa, flight deck," Spring pages me himself via the ship's PA. Roana and I are down below, helping to pack the cod away in the cold lockers ourselves, even though we don't have to. It's just another wonderful thing about life in Berk. Ashore or at sea, we all share in at least some communal chores, regardless of rank or status.

"Go," my mate encourages me after the page, loosely embracing me as we're both wearing yellow crew bibs and raincoats for handling the cold, slimy fish. "I've volunteered for another shift in Sick Bay anyway. Kleluk's bandages are due for changing."

"Oh," I finally remember, "remind the Barony to send some of the topical ointments with my patented active ingredients in them. They certainly grew skin in my lab cultures in Houston, years ago."

"Already did," she assures as we part. "They should be included in the next supply rendezvous, set for Prudhoe Bay, Alaska."

"Glad something came of all that work," I reminisce.

"A lot of good comes from you," Roana warmly assures, coming back to give me an extra kiss.

"I do love you," I sigh in appreciation as we give each other one more good squeeze. "And Roana," I decide to admit, "I've been having a couple more little dizzy spells the last couple days."

"I'm that much of a pain and worrywart, huh?" she gently questions in my arms.

"I'm sorry," I say as we embrace one another again.

"Date night, later," she simply invites however. "Cabin partition closed. My turn to host and spoil this time."

"I am there, Lady," I assure.

"Mind if we play just a little 'doctor' though?" she hints.

"Under those conditions? You can do _whatever_ you like," I sigh with a smile, barely remembering even why we are parting now as we let go of one another.

"See you for dinner and a house call," she smiles as well, already shedding her yellow raincoat as she goes.

Now why would I want to hide things from her when she turns around and pampers me like that?

_Because she wasn't offering exams like that before,_ the other side of me chimes in.

Roana and I are still growing together. I find myself offering a quick but profound thanks to Spirit as I shed my yellow rubber fishing garb and boots, soon hanging it all in a nearby wash rack for hosing down along with other rubber gear later by crewmembers.

Donning my olive green winter parka hung on a peg, as well as warmer, lined black leather gloves and casual shoes once more, I walk aft along the wide corridor from the storage spaces above and behind the Aft Engine Room, pressing a large red button to one side which opens a broad pair of watertight doors in front of me. Stepping through and re-closing the doors behind me with the press of a button on the other side, I briefly pass through a now mostly vacant and garage-like Mission Space where the cod was initially brought. Its two portals are still open to the sea beyond as several human crewmembers finish hosing down its deck. Even if it wasn't being cleaned at the moment, with the Morning Dawn's crew gone, the dragons and their human companions naturally prefer congregating in the warmer and more desirable large forward lower and main deck berthing areas, or in the main deck crew mess, over having to bed down beside the two eleven-metre RHIBs stored on cradles one in front of the other along the port side of this space.

Turning to ascend the opened ramp up to the hangar, I then turn again and walk out through the large, halfway rolled-up hangar door to the flight deck. Amid a light, whitish-grey sleet that is now falling almost horizontally, I see just Spring . . . and his soccer ball.

"Haven't done this with you in longest time," he invites, standing ready on three paws as he poises with the ball under his fourth. "You defend hangar doorway as your goal, me the stern."

Even though the safety netting and stanchions are locked in their upright positions around the edge of the flight deck, and should catch the ball as long as I kick it low . . . "Get ready to go fishing," I smile as I crouch down at the hangar portal as the Drekar carries us all along at a comfortable eighteen knots.

"You wish!" he challenges, kicking the ball towards me . . . just not all that fast.

"Come on! I'm not that old," I sigh, catching the well-worn soccer ball with my right foot all too easily.

"Just taking it easy on ball," he excuses in jest.

"Well I think it can take a little more than that," I reply, kicking it back harder towards him across the rubbery Neoprene surface. Spring easily catches it under his left forepaw and kicks it back along the surface once more.

"If that's the best you can do," I smile, catching the ball again with my right foot, "you're getting rusty yourself." I now kick the ball harder and higher, sending it headed above the railing. My dragon son catches it with his extended left wing however, smoothly scooping it right back down to his paw. He then kicks it back without delay above the deck as well this time.

"Now that's more like it!" I accept, having to reach to my right to catch the ball with my hands before it sails inside the hangar. "That's the dragon I remember!" I say, kicking it back at him hard, fondly recalling the first time I did this with Spring in the valley fields above our village, back when he was a young Night Fury with no name—at least that I could speak.

He is my son. I find that truth surging throughout my being, bringing a tear of deep appreciation and gratitude to my eye. So much time has passed, so much love has grown. Part of me can't help thinking of being parted from him once more at the end of this mission however, as I go back to New Berk while he remains onboard the Drekar.

I find myself wishing it didn't have to be so. That we could always be father and son . . . together.

That young dragon now morphs back into a grown ship's captain, epaulettes and all, as he kicks the ball up and to my left this time.

Even though it's set to miss the hangar door itself, I rush to the starboard edge of the ship. Raising my arms to catch the ball to avoid it bouncing overboard off the bulkhead, I lean against the upright safety netting stanchions at the edge of the flight deck. Success! The worn ball is tightly gripped between my upraised hands in almost a victory pose.

Suddenly though, a disorienting vertigo floods my head as the world begins spinning around me. "Whoa . . ." I say. My grip unconsciously loosens around the ball as my hands drop. My left hand grips the railing to steady myself. Bouncing once on the railing beside me, the soccer ball falls away, down the side of the ship and into the foaming sea passing beneath.

Even though I am hardly moving, it feels as if I'm spinning faster than a figure skater at the Winter Olympics. I find myself staggering. My left hand shudders, still gripping the railing beside me.

Then, as if inside a dream, I fall over the deck edge rail and netting.

"DAAADD . . . !" I hear Spring's terrified roar echoing as the world turns almost upside down.

The back of my head hits the surprisingly hard and cold seawater while the grey hull of the Drekar speeds by . . .

— — — — —

"Legene . . ." or 'doctors' I hear said in Bokmål as I awake, seemingly surrounded by blinding light—but only towards the right though for some reason. "Chief, can you understand me?" the female corpsman then says in English. I see only her head. She is still wearing a surgical mask across her face as she leans over me from the left, flashing a penlight across each of my eyes.

"Yesss . . ." I find myself quietly slurring as I see Roana and Doctor Pedersen, the Drekar's Medical Officer, now appearing over me from the right in blue surgical scrubs as well.

"Ze left pupil is still more dilated than za right," the female corpsman reports. Roana now takes the penlight, flashing it across my eyes a second time to confirm things for herself.

"Wh-What goesss onn?" I now weakly ask.

"Lance," my mate says slowly as she finishes examining my eyes, "you've had a Thrombotic Stroke in your Cerebellum, at the base of your brain. You've been sedated for hours . . . and through surgery, to remove the clot."

"Your wife was lead surgeon," Doctor Pedersen almost smiles in admiration with his mild Norwegian accent.

"Pedersen has just never performed brain surgery," my mate replies, glancing at him, "while I have. Fortunately, I think I did better this time than with Alexi years ago. Looks like pursuing that further medical degree in stages, and some surgical training on the Outside, paid off."

"Wasn't jussst falling offff ship?" I wonder, still fighting off delirium as I blink my eyes.

"Your loss of equilibrium that is controlled from the Cerebellum caused you to fall overboard," my mate answers. "Fortunately Spring dove and caught you, he says practically as soon as you hit the water. You had lost consciousness, but his description of seeing you totter and faint as you fell over the side caused me to scan your Cerebellum, and we found the clot. So our son saved you, in more ways than one."

That briefly causes me to smile. But . . . "Cann't sssee . . . leffft," I then strain to say, looking at her almost at the right edge of my field of vision as I try to see the whole of her face.

"That can't be right," Roana notes with concern, holding up a finger in front of my face. "Look straight up and tell me when this finger disappears," she then instructs, moving her hand and extended index finger across my face towards the left as I strain to focus on them.

"Noww," I say as it disappears into a blackness that now occupies far more of my vision than I can ever remember. I turn my head to see where she is still holding her finger. It is a little ways to the left above my nose.

On the right side of my field of vision, I see Roana pursing her lips, almost subtly grimacing with sad concern. "There is stroke damage to your right Occipital Lobe as well," she says with reluctance. "But I didn't touch that during surgery, and it shouldn't have been affected by the clot we found. Doctor, sonogram. Lance, turn your head to the left," she now directs in quick succession.

She places her hand on the bandages from the prior surgery wrapped about my head as I can vaguely feel the small, rectangular head of an instrument placed against the back of my skull. Moments seem to pass as Roana slowly traces the head of the instrument back and forth against the bandages. While I can't see or sense it, I surmise that she is carefully watching a greatly magnified display of the high-resolution sonogram on an adjacent video monitor.

"There it is," she finally says. "Another clot, and brain damage . . . roughly two centimetres inside the right Occipital Lobe. We're going to have to go back in."

"Should we turn ship around?" I now hear Spring query from beyond the foot of the medical bed I am lying upon. "Head for at least Saint John, Newfoundland?"

"No," I say with all the firmness I can muster as my head still faces to the left.

"Lance, with a second clot," my wife responds, "this is now serious. Very serious. There could be more in your system, headed for gods know where. Our one lab tech can do some of the blood analysis, and we have a basic blood thinner onboard to dose you with . . . but you should be in a hospital, one with advanced facilities. Marta and I would be sending you to at least Ørland's base hospital, even Oslo, if we were back home."

"Morre dragonsss hatch evv'ry day we delay," I slur, still looking off to the side.

"We reach British Columbia, even next year if necessary," my son tries to assure.

"What iff I'm nnot herre next yearr?" I find myself coldly posing, feeling the need to use a trump card to prevent the others from turning us back.

"Lannce be crucial to this journey," I hear Substance say from my left side. Unsteadily, I reach my hand for her, and feel her head meeting it. "His word, his selection of place, carry respect among all. To turn back would show us uncertain, easily dissuaded, less than resolute."

"But if we lose you . . ." my wife quietly tears up, putting her curled knuckles to her mouth, almost trying to muzzle the words.

"Hope onnce did betterr with uss thann inn incubator," I try to assure, slowly turning my head back towards her, also extending my right hand to Roana as she takes it in both of hers. "I do betterr with all you 'round me," I continue, speaking with almost the economy of a dragon now amid my fog of stroke and drugs, "thann inn any Outside hospital."

My wife briefly closes her eyes, likely in prayer just as I would be, while holding my hand. "Captain," she finally says, reopening her eyes and staring vacantly downwards at the bulkhead or wall beside me, " . . . maintain course, towards British Columbia. My call. My responsibility."

"That'ss my chief," I gently whisper. "I wannt 'housse call' . . . laterr," I add though.

That causes Roana to smile as she looks at me, even quietly chuckle, grimacing though as some tears trickle from her eyes. She then lowers herself to carefully embrace me, allowing the mate and lover to come through ahead of the surgeon for a brief moment.

"I amm ssso proud of you," I whisper as I weakly bring my arms about her upper back as well. Part of me is now scared of my own mortality, just as I know she is . . . which is why I want her to hear those words, so much.

She moves to share a soft kiss with me on the lips as her tears fall on my closed eyelids. Then, slowly pulling her head back and giving my left cheek a caress with the fingers of her right hand, she and I gaze into each other's eyes, saying everything now without uttering a word, even though I can only see half of her.

Finally, rising upright once more and recomposing herself, "Prepare for surgery," Roana directs.

"Shouldn't you have a break?" Pedersen cautions beside her.

"I've just had one," she calmly replies, wiping the tears from her eyes. "I want to save my husband's eyesight, while we still can. And I want his principal veins and arteries sonogrammed for more clots, along with the rest of his brain."

"That will take time," the Medical Officer cautions.

"Then let's get to it," Roana says, assuming an all-business air. "Corpsmen, move him back to the surgical bay, and get us fresh scrubs."

"Yes m'am," I hear one male corpsman reply.

"We should inform Barony, even Oslo," I hear Spring say as he turns to leave.

"Go ahead," Roana answers as an assistant stands in front, helping her don a new surgical gown. "Also, inform them I am now acting chief, until further notice."

"Yes, m'am," my son replies as he exits back into the main deck's central corridor, with Substance following him.

"If they need to talk to me," my mate adds, "it can wait until after the surgery. Tell them in perhaps eight hours."

"Yes, Mom," I think I hear Spring reply from the corridor, with somewhat more concern this time.

My mobile bed is then wheeled back into the ship's fairly compact surgical space. I find myself continuing to quietly smile in admiration at my mate and wife as I am gently rolled over by three pairs of hands onto my stomach upon the padded operating table. My face is positioned to rest within a padded ring poised at a slight downward angle at the table's end, so that the back of my cranium can be worked on once more.

As an oxygen mask is soon placed over my nose and mouth from underneath and the anaesthesia gradually applied, my only thought is, _I can't be this old . . ._


	55. Chapter 55

I feel myself nestled amid the softest, warmest nook or crevice I could ever ask to be. The left side of my head is surrounded by the sounds, even the sensations of steady breathing and a beating heart.

Am I starting all over again? From the beginning? My awareness seems in flux . . . like such a thing might just be happening.

Don't I deserve at least a little respite in some sort of paradise or heaven before launching into yet another life?

I'm feeling gypped.

"Roanna . . . Roanna," I hear a deep voice say near my head, "Lannce is waking."

The warmth I'm laying against now stretches. I even feel toes pressing against my feet. Bare arms then carefully enfold me as I am ever so gently rocked, even treasured. I relax.

My life as Lance Ýsa, Husa or Hyse is not over yet.

Nothing more is said however as I feel lips kissing my forehead at the edge of some bandaging while I continue to be held and rocked against a bared feminine body.

I am definitely receiving the 'Hope' treatment here—the same physical, nurturing care my mate and I gave our daughter during her 'preemie' stage, even for a good while after that.

"Rrroaaa . . ." is all I can seem to almost croak out of my mouth though, even though the rest of my mind seems fully present and accounted for.

"Shhhhh . . ." I am gently soothed as my gentle rocking continues.

I begin to subtly smile with accepting contentment as I enjoy a relaxed sigh, at least still being able to do these things. But since my mouth won't seem to engage, I reach for Substance behind me with my mind. She can do my talking for now.

But I feel nothing this time. Just blankness.

"What do you want, Lannce?" my dragon wonders however.

I try again, closing my eyes even more tightly in concentration. But my head continues to feel empty, unconnected.

"I sense you just fine, Lannce," Substance assures, moving to wrap her large head behind my shoulders, even giving my back a reassuring nudge with the side of her snout.

_I can't feel you,_ I think with growing distress to my dragon. _The harmony . . . it's not there._

I now open my eyes. Blurs of light and dark slowly begin to come into focus. I first see what seems like a light beige cliff filling the left corner of my vision, before I remember I'm lying horizontally. At least I can see across Roana's bared shoulders in full, right from some blurry light freckles or blemishes near my left eye to her far shoulder and beyond to the bulkhead of our cabin, which fortunately comes into sharp relief.

My vision has been restored.

"I feel you," my dragon continues to comfort, continuing to gently nudge my right shoulder and upper arm now with her chin. "Every word you think."

_Tell Roana I'm not linking,_ I mentally request. _That I can't feel you or the harmony like I'm used to doing._

"Lannce says he can't connect or feel me with his mind, like he's used to," Substance conveys aloud for me.

"Science hasn't mapped the psychic or even really the language centres of the brain yet," my mate notes as she continues to cradle me against her. "There was a small amount of dead tissue in your Right Occipital Lobe, and I likely had to cut through more than a few neurons. The brain can reroute and rewire itself though, so just rest and maybe give it some time."

"He can see in full again," my dragon reports, having picked up my thoughts, perceptions and even relief. "Thinks your bare shoulders are wonderful sight."

I smile, closing my eyes once more as I nestle even closer against the right shoulder my head is resting upon. My mate's arms, shoulder, and body gently tighten around me in a further embrace. She even quietly chuckles around me.

"How is he otherwise, Substance?" Roana then asks.

"Mouth not talk well," my dragon answers behind me. "But otherwise he seem fully cognizant, relaxed. Feel no aches, pains or numbness within him."

_I'm just blind to the harmony now,_ I can't help mentally chiming in.

"Lannce . . ." my dragon now says seemingly with care. "I sense every thought from you. I hear you. Keep thinking to me. Keep reaching. Keep trying. Our link not broken. Not at all. I'm just bearing it for us right now."

Suddenly, I can't help feeling a deep but silent sadness, closing my eyes more tightly again as I lie against Roana. I feel just a man once more . . . an old man, when I used to be more—able to reach into, even through dragons, at least mine. Almost be one of them.

"He sad, over loss of link," Substance reports.

"I've never been able to do with Rökkr what you say you have with Substance," my mate now soothes. "I know he can sense my every thought and wish. But it's always been one way, not two."

_I'm blind though,_ I can't help thinking as I blink my eyes open once more. _Psychicly blind . . . and mute._

"You not mute," my dragon now gently but firmly challenges behind me. "Speak. Exercise brain and mouth. Summon back your abilities. Rebuild them, and grow stronger, like me. Try, and do."

"Aaiiigghhh . . ." I struggle to say. But I can't coherently utter even a single-lettered personal pronoun! I clench my right hand into a fist in frustration, about to pound what it was resting upon.

I stop myself however, realizing that fist is about to pound my wife's bare stomach. I flatten my hand out once more, rubbing Roana's abdomen instead . . . just fairly firmly.

_Substance,_ I now mentally direct, _you're speaking for me._

"I speak for you sometimes, Lannce," my dragon replies, allowing Roana an insight into our silent dialogue. "But you keep trying."

_I hate the sound I make! This accent!_ I think in frustration to her. _With even my first word,_ _I sound stupid!_

"Say it, aloud," my dragon dispassionately challenges.

"AAIIGH HHGHAATE THGHISS ACCGHENNT!" I say with a forcefulness that surprises all of us . . . especially me.

"Well, your voice still works," my mate replies with a degree of understatement.

"Everything okay in here?" Tyrah now wonders, sliding our cabin partition open partway before poking her head around it.

"Ssssorrgh—" I try to apologise, before just turning it over to Substance.

"He says he's sorry," my dragon son, Spring, chimes in however as Tyrah reopens the partition in full between our cabins.

I just sigh, collapsing against Roana under our covers even though I've been lying flat, nestled against her the whole time.

_What time is it?_ I mentally wonder to whichever dragon cares to answer me.

"It Oh Three Thirty," Spring answers as he takes a big yawn from the bedding he shares with Tyrah beyond my feet. "You hungry, Dad?"

I just remain silent this time, even in my thoughts. I hate my body now, how it has betrayed me . . . at least from the neck up. I don't feel like giving it a thing at the moment.

"He would like light meal," Substance decides for me however. "I think midnight snack be good for all of us, as family." Her black head subtly turns towards me above my right side though, quietly challenging me to voice my strong disagreement with her highly inaccurate interpretation of my true wishes.

I just take another sigh, letting everything go as I rest against Roana.

"Be right back," Tyrah cheerily responds. "And Mom—I mean Roana—you and everyone else just stay put. I'll just grab a galley steward to help with the delivery."

"Tyrah," my mate says, briefly stopping the redhead as our new daughter-in-law quickly dons a casual pair of grey crew sweats, "we're going to enjoy having you in this family. I love hearing, 'Mom.' Never heard it enough from my own daughter. Just don't tell her that though."

Tyrah can't help but smile as she now quickly puts on a pair of socks and gym shoes as well for the short trek down to the ship's Crew Mess.

"But just chicken soup, oatmeal and orange juice for Lance at the moment, please," Roana quickly adds. "Make that for me, too—so he doesn't feel deprived."

That forces me to ruefully crack a smile amid my quiet frustration as my mate warmly kisses my forehead.

"You're going on a Mediterranean diet for now, Lance," my mate notes, continuing to cradle me as Tyrah heads out the cabin door, closing it behind her.

"Mehh . . . ?" I wonder. I'm not even going to try pronouncing Mediterranean in full at the moment.

"Plenty of fish and fish oil, to help lubricate those arteries and thin out your blood," she replies. "No more Reindyrstek—thankfully we're out if it anyway—or much of any red meats, gravy, or fats, and light on the salt for right now. Just whole grains, veggies, fruits and fish, with maybe a little red wine now and then."

I just give out another resigned sigh as my reply.

"Hey, I'll do it with you," she assures though. "Just like I am now. You're not alone in this, Lance. Any of it."

"Aaiiigghh . . ." I try to say, before just giving up in frustration, turning and burying my face against her shoulder, with my nose ending up right at her armpit. After thirty-one years, Roana's natural scents are so familiar to me though that I find them comforting. At least I can still smell, along with the other stuff that works within me.

"I love you, too," my mate replies, holding me warmly amid our bedding, even stroking the back of my head. It wasn't what I had intended to say, but right now it'll work. Works just fine, actually.

"It was hell though, doing brain surgery on you for hours more," she continues as her right hand caresses the back of my bandaged head. "It was something seeing inside that brilliant, loving, caring mind of yours. But I couldn't help knowing that I was delving right inside your life . . . even you. One wrong move or a bad slice, and there goes a piece of you. Lost. Maybe even all of you. I just had to keep refocusing on it all as veins, arteries and delicate surrounding tissue.

"But all the while," she sniffs, "those words of yours kept echoing in my head, 'What if I'm not here next year?'

"Lance," she continues, "I know you're just a couple hours out of surgery, and we both need relaxation and rest. But I gotta say it. Those few words of yours . . . they were the most frightening, terrible, even hurtful thing I have ever heard you say."

"Go easy on him, Mom," I hear Spring chime in from beyond my feet.

"You hurt Spring, me, everyone in our family," my wife quietly maintains, her own pain, even subtle anger coming through as she nonetheless holds me. "Spring was even shedding tears as he left."

"He says, 'You're right, I'm sorry,'" Substance responds, conveying my thoughts practically as fast as I can think them.

"Say it with your own mouth," Roana replies somewhat coolly however.

I take a deep breath as I continue lying against my wife. "Aaiigghh'mm sorrrygh," I manage to reply on my own. "Didn'ght waghnnt missshion to faihll becghause ovv mmhee."

"We know you didn't," my mate calmly responds. "But we're not ready to let you go, okay? Even if we have to hollow out the rest of the mountains or build highrise condos for the dragons on New Berk.

"Now I'm the one who's sorry though," she relents to my surprise. "Wanting to keep you alive so I could chew you out over this. It was one of the things that kept me going and focused though as I finally removed that clot blinding you around Twenty-Three Hundred hours, then sewing that small artery closed and carefully backing everything out from inside that thick skull of yours, on top of ultra-sounding virtually your entire brain one more time to ensure we didn't miss any more clots.

"I just wanted to keep having someone to hold in bed at night," she sniffs. "I don't know how I'd sleep otherwise."

Struggling to a degree as Roana's arms loosen around me, I carefully raise myself to eye level beside her in our bedding as she turns her head to look at me. I then just bring my mate into an embrace against my shoulder.

It's the easiest way to apologise to her.

"Dad . . ." Spring now says, moving up along the right side of my legs. I turn my head, straining to raise it a little so I can look down along the quilt at him. He seems like the frightened young dragon I had to comfort so many years ago after I was injured in the snow with Substance during my first winter at New Berk.

"Whhaght hhappenned to balll?" I weakly ask, laying a hand upon the front of his snout.

"It right here," my dragon son replies, briefly backing away as he turns his head to gently pick it up with his mouth, teeth momentarily retracted, from against the bulkhead and windows beside him. Rising and bringing it to me, he lays it with care against my back as I shift, rolling somewhat to take it into the crook of my right arm. "Rökkr find it for us," he adds as Rökkr chimes in with a few mumbled grunts on Roana's far side.

"He says losing ball bigger threat to mission than even your stroke," my dragon son translates. "You keep it safe though, Dad, for both of us," Spring then sniffs however, " . . . until you kick it back to me. It your turn."

With difficulty, I reach past that scuffed and faded white ball dotted with black pentagons. Finally, I touch my dragon son's large head with at least my right hand as he moves himself further toward and even partly over me.

I will be damned if I am taken from him yet . . . from any of my family.

"Aaiigh'm sorrrygh," I repeat once more as Tyrah now reenters with a galley steward carrying our midnight meals on trays.

"Kan du hjelpe meg med ham?" my mate asks in Bokmål, glancing at Tyrah, as Substance moves her head and neck away from me so that our daughter-in-law can kneel down to reach, take hold and assist me from my right side.

Suddenly I feel so useless as I am helped by the two women to sit up and slide back against the side of my dragon. Tyrah even keeps the soccer ball tucked amid the quilting beside me, knowing how important it is to both Spring and myself.

"Aiiigghh . . ." I begin. But I am too embarrassed to finish.

"He needs to go," my dragon finishes for me.

I just look down, dropping my head in further shame.

"Just put a hand under his thigh," my mate gently directs in English, presumably to better let me know what's coming, as I feel Tyrah's hand reach under my right leg. "Let's pick him up on three. Ready?" she pauses as Tyrah nods. "One, two, three."

Still wearing just a hospital gown, I am picked up in a sitting position, my arms spread across the shoulders of the women supporting me as their arms brace my back. They pick my five foot, ten inch frame up with ease. But with both of them being Viking women, I shouldn't be surprised.

I allow my head to droop forward though, subtly shaking it in resignation as I am carried into the head or bathroom that is shared between our two cabins. It's large enough for a dragon—a Night Fury or Gronkle anyway . . . maybe a Nightmare if its tail is curled up. Fitted with sliding doors at opposite ends of the side facing our cabins, the seamless, cream-coloured fibreglass space also doubles as a shower for both dragons and humans. I should feel fortunate, even privileged, that I don't have to be carried along the corridor to the communal heads aft on this deck that occupants of the more junior cabins use . . . but I don't. Only a few days ago, I was riding my dragon in a combat exercise and game, even catching a falling Canadian constable. Now I have to be carried to use a bathroom.

Giving me a little dignity, Roana and Tyrah withdraw, closing the sliding door, and I am left alone for the first time with my own thoughts for a moment. I can't help feeling handicapped now. Invalid, helpless . . . like I've never been before. I don't know if this stroke—these combined strokes really—will heal like the broken bones I've suffered in the past. If I could retire, withdraw, permanently hide, I think I would.

But I know that I can't. My family, all of them, won't allow me to. Funny, but that actually makes me smile for the first time amid all I am facing.

As I am ready, even about to call for help again, my dragon reopens the power sliding door with a push of her snout against the handle that actuates it. Even though I mentally cannot feel her, Substance is still tuned into me . . . almost too much so. I just turn my head to look at her as I sit upon a throne in a corner that is anything but regal.

I am gently smiling though. My dragon's face breaks into a subtle, approving smile as well. The first step in my recovery.

Everyone should have a dragon in their lives, not to mention a close family, to keep them on track.

— — — — —

Food. It's a wonderful thing. Even if it's bland and supposedly Mediterranean.

It is the middle of the day now. Substance alone is keeping watch over me as I finish a small midday meal, this time a cup-sized bowl of tomato vegetable soup along with whole wheat toast, sitting up against her side. My hands and arms are working fine for the most part, even though the grip of my left hand was found to be somewhat weak when Roana had me perform a squeeze test a short while ago.

My mate is now down in Sick Bay, assessing the blood samples that she's drawn from me with the lab technician. Spring is on the bridge at the moment, Tyrah is supervising elsewhere around the ship, and I think Rökkr may even be on aerial patrol. Yep, he is. Just saw him wearing his strap, flying by in the distance outside the window.

_What day is this?_ I silently wonder to Substance, setting aside my lunch tray as I pick up my laptop again to resume chronicling my brush with death, or at least with a couple of strokes.

"Don't know," she responds. "Remember, dragons don't count."

_Spring does,_ I mentally note. _As captain, he has to at times._

"Takes after you," she snarks. "You infected him."

_You know,_ I continue, _I'd give anything, even to silently sense your insults once more._

"Amund didn't very much," she more quietly responds. "When I got irritated with him, I could often silently think all sorts of dragon invectives."

_You? Get mad at Amund?_ I silently wonder, casting a glance her way.

"Part of love," my black dragon companion responds, almost with a shrug. "Everything open to one another, inside and out. 'Why they not see it my way?' you wonder. 'Why my love not think like me?' That your heart open—it make both good and bad come out easily. Amund love me, even my irritated self. My irritations, even insults . . . they just made him smile.

"He was man of infinite patience," she sighs. "He calmed me, even held me back from myself—which is why I 'lost it' so bad as you say, after he die.

"But I won't do it," Substance then notes out of the blue.

_Do what?_ I think as I continue reviewing my electronic journal here on the laptop.

"Run you and I into a cliff," she replies. "I won't do it . . . ever."

_Well, rules that out then,_ I silently note with a sigh. _Care to tell me why?_

"Amund never get chance to grow old with me," she answers. "He talk of actually looking forward to becoming infirm, being cared for amid family, as our ancestors have always been. That was heaven he wanted, even more than Asgard. Simple expressions of love. That is heaven you have, Lannce. No grandchildren yet, but they come, one way or another. You cannot throw away gift he desire so much. I won't let you."

_It's Day 36,_ I realize, splitting my screen as I scroll back to the most recent reference.

"This why dragons not count," Substance almost snorts with irritation.

— — — — —

Roana soon returns though, along with Spring and Tyrah to my surprise, considering it's early afternoon according to the clock on my laptop. All of them have somewhat subdued, even serious looks on their faces, which gives me some concern.

"I take over, Mom," Spring offers aloud to Substance.

Moving my meal tray further to the side on the quilt bedding, and my laptop out of the way as well for a moment, Roana takes me into an embrace to gently pull my upper body forward from Substance's side. I can't help once more feeling like a lifesize human rag doll.

"Thannks," Substance almost grunts in English, rising onto her legs, stretching and flexing her body to a degree behind me. "Been in that position since last night."

"Go," my dragon son encourages. "Rökkr waiting for you at hangar. Take you for exercise flight."

That causes Substance to pause amid her first step to move around and away from me however. Even yesterday, I could just tune in and understand the reasoning behind anything my dragon did. Now, my mind is quiet, even silent. Yet somehow, the reason and understanding are still there.

"We will fly again," my dragon companion assures.

"Aiigh knough," I quietly reply, finding what I can only call a peaceful resignation with my situation and condition now.

Substance then carefully steps her large body around me, tapping into me, perhaps even others, so she can confidently place her large legs and paws along my right side, knowing that she won't be stepping on me, or even the soccer ball. My son then moves in between the rear bulkhead and myself right behind her. Substance even orients herself towards the door to the corridor, but then pauses again.

Surmising she is waiting for the offer of a sighted escort down to the hangar, I just glance towards Tyrah and then tip my head with a glance back towards Substance.

"Let me take you down to Rökkr," our daughter-in-law offers.

"Thannks," Substance simply accepts as Tyrah then steps forward, opening the door and leading her out. Tyrah moves back past Substance in the corridor though as the rest of us see her head briefly smiling before she shuts the cabin door behind my dragon.

Still wearing his naval epaulettes, Spring is now lying down behind me as Roana eases me against him. Having a family of dragons to recline against, even the captain of this ship . . . I find myself quietly moved with a surprising degree of gratitude.

"Shhurre yough donn't hhavve mmorre immportant thhings to bhe doinngh?" I wonder, turning my head towards my son.

"Just returning favour," he warmly assures, "for you taking care of me while Tyrah absent."

I briefly smile.

"Besides," he then adds in a seemingly more serious tone though, "we have something to discuss, and prepare you for."

"Preghpare . . . ?" I wonder, wanting to say more but finding it just not worth the effort.

"Lance," Roana says carefully as she also sits back against Spring beside me, "Jarldis . . . she has died, just hours ago." My mate then takes a cautious breath, which surprises me as the baroness' death had not been all that unexpected, given both her advanced age and recent infirmity. "Spring came and got me from Sick Bay so that Oleg could advise me personally, via videolink in the radio alcove."

"Whhaght's problehm?" I ask, using a minimal amount of words, but guessing something is still not right amid the sad news.

"Although she had naturally tried," my wife continues, "as you know, Jarldis never had any offspring . . . any heirs. It's probably why she treated both me, and later Hope, as family—close family.

"Her will," Roana carefully resumes, "lays out a requested succession, but a faction of the Baronial hierarchy and administration are opposing it."

"Bureaucraghts," I sigh. "Wgho izz tghe heirr, and wgho izz challenghing?"

"Hope is Jarldis' requested heir and successor," my mate replies to my inward shock, " . . . and the challenger is your son."

"Rhonahld," I sigh, looking out a window, now dismayed as well as surprised.

Another Ýsa succession conflict. This time it's worse than that of my great-grandfather because it's affecting the whole of the Barony, and our nation's future. It is just what I least wanted. But I am the cause of it, even its father.

Ronald. I could pose the same question concerning him that I did in trying to summarize Spring's progress several chapters ago in this journal . . . where do I begin?

Only this time, it's not so good.

A parent can't help but love most any child they bring into the world. Perhaps I should have snatched Ronald away when he was little from Melanie and Douglas that day three decades ago in the Kafé Berk at Wønur, consequences be damned. Even Melanie might have been grateful in the end.

Ronald had continued to be raised after that, knowing he was not Douglas' son. His family having moved with Baronial help to Sweden, he grew up with the oversight, even periodic involvement of our Outside Guardians. Melanie however, always chasing status and image, became enamoured with the European upper class ideal of boarding schools, at least and especially among boys. Since the Barony itself had no such schools, and didn't really believe in breaking children from their families for education or any other reason until adulthood, Ronald was sent to a succession of boarding or 'public' schools as the British call them from just the fourth grade, while Melanie and Douglas doted on his younger half-sister Alexandra, keeping her at home with them in Sweden throughout her youth.

I should have taken Ronald, brought him to New Berk at fourth grade. He would likely have had a wonderful childhood with the dragons.

But I didn't. Melanie was Ronald's custodial parent, and part of me didn't want to tear him between two still fairly separate worlds, especially at such a young age.

I should have fought for him though. I should have fought for him.

Roana and I did make periodic trips to see Ronald however, even at Britain's prestigious Eton College for Boys. We would take him out for weekends away from school, try to give him a semblance of close family life and talk with him to see where he was in life.

Each time we saw him though, he was becoming more and more distant, feeling he had no one to trust to always be with him in life—no one to rely on but himself amid the rivalry and hazing that can occur in such schools.

He masked it to Melanie through being a brilliant student, as both of his parents had been. That was all my ex-wife seemed to care about. But over time, and in hindsight, I could see a darker side emerging.

When I finally sent for Ronald, had Outside Guardians bring him to New Berk at the customary age of seventeen, to reveal his other heritage and lineage in full, he seemed to react surprisingly like Ran had . . . stand-offish, untrusting of the dragons. He wasn't surprised by them however.

"I can do more for them on the Outside," he had calmly said to me, "like Hope." Being on the Outside herself through the latter part of her adolescence, and in a top-tier private school as well—Hope, ever the bridge-builder, had already made it her job, her mission, to keep Ronald connected to our family . . . more than a little like Ebeneezer Scrooge's younger sister, Fan. I had read Dickens' classic 'A Christmas Carol' aloud to our family during a number of Yules over the years while Hope was growing up with us at New Berk. She had always felt for young Ebeneezer in that story when his sister came to rescue him from school, later telling me she was doing just the same thing for Ronald. Hope even convinced the baroness to take him in and see that he was schooled in Oslo with her for his final year before university—just in different classes as they were a year apart.

I gave my daughter my full blessing and encouragement. I even wished I could tear myself away from a growing and changing New Berk to do part of the work myself in giving Ronald the stable and comforting sense of family that even Substance perceived he had long been lacking. But I felt Hope would do an even better job than I could.

Part of me was at a loss though as to why Ronald's other family wasn't seeming to relate well to him. My other half cynically chalked it up to being a double-standard and favouritism—perhaps even animus from Douglas towards a son that wasn't his. But Melanie had never been one for closeness and empathy—Alexandra was certainly not very warm and empathetic as she grew up like our Hope was—and Melanie's brief exposure to dragons could only bring her that way so far, likely just temporarily. At least she was remaining loyal to the Barony and our tribe. We were providing my ex and her family with a good life and career, after all—not that she and Douglas weren't also serving to enrich Gerhard Industries with their technical work and innovations in return.

Living for just a year in the Oslo region though, via the baroness, Ronald was exposed to all the workings of the Barony, and the Gerhard conglomerate of companies that supported it all. While Hope decided that diplomacy for the Barony and our tribe was her calling, Ronald decided that business was his. He founded his first venture, two of them actually, while he was still in university—Oxford, because he had come to prefer the English language. While both his ventures were in high tech, developing proprietary algorithms he later sold at a tremendous, even perhaps obscene profit, Ronald was the master strategist and deal-maker . . . a charming 'diplomat' of business, not unlike his half-sister Hope in that regard. He merely hired engineers and technical talent from among his fellow students for everything else.

That he didn't pay or share much of the spoils with his associates though should have further tipped me off.

No sooner had he graduated with a Masters degree in Business than he effortlessly stepped into the chairmanship and presidency of a small, but multi-faceted and rapidly growing conglomerate that he created from the proceeds of his first two ventures. He established his headquarters in Stockholm, along with having a lavish house built on several hectares of land out in the nearby Swedish countryside, all for himself alone. "More space than the Netherlands offers," he once told me on a visit, "despite the higher taxes. But I'm working around that." He had acquired his mother's taste for living well, and was by then very un-Berker in outlook and attitude.

Seeing his then new house on our last visit with him, Roana and I quietly decided that we couldn't stand to be there for more than a single afternoon—despite being annual, even semi-annual guests at the far more opulent royal palace in Oslo for many years, at the regular invitation of the Norwegian king and queen. It was the energy, the atmosphere in Ronald's house that served to repel my mate and I. Cold, abstract black and white art lined its sterile white walls along echoing corridors, and there wasn't much of any carpeting over the black marble floors. His small household staff of a valet, housekeeper and cook—presumably some of whom also had security training and qualifications—never seemed very happy. The furniture in the house was beyond stylish and trendy, but quite uncomfortable to actually use—except for the single large armchairs Ronald would use himself. All of it just caused me to largely write my human son off at that point. Hope could deal with him, especially as she still wanted to. She had also assured me he would not betray the dragons or their secret, and that she would ensure he continued to do so.

The ending of that afternoon at his house just became very uncomfortable though. "I'm frankly disappointed with the direction, the path, you have chosen in life, Ronald," I quietly told him as Roana waited with our Outside Guardian security contingent just beyond the front door. That he was now my height, and even looked a fair bit like me, complete with medium-length wavy brown hair, was further chilling.

"Why?" my grown human son asked with the mild, upper-crust British accent he had acquired over his years of schooling there. "I am simply doing in business what you have done out there in the wilderness—assemble an empire."

"That's not what I've done," I replied, shaking my head.

"Of course it is," he countered. "You fought off enemies to establish your leadership. You control the world's largest tribal sovereign wealth fund and syndicate. You are personal friends with royalty, as well as military leaders across a number of countries. Plus you have it all for life, Father. I envy you, I truly do. Mother is satisfied with her moderate wealth and accomplishments at work. But you, Dad—you have real wealth, and power. Power and respect that can never be taken from you. That's what I want in life . . . especially after what I've been through to get where I am," he finished more quietly, briefly looking down.

I should have hugged him.

I should have hugged him . . . even plunged a syringe into his neck and taken him away drugged back to New Berk with me, right in that moment.

But I didn't. All I did was to shake his hand with a tear of regret in my eye.

After Roana and I left him, his own conglomerate, his corporate empire grew, rapidly. Naming it Ýsa Selskaper or 'Ýsa Companies'—I couldn't legally stop him in time from reserving and using the family name, especially once he took it as his own—I should have seen where he was heading with that as well. His corporation took over company after company though, across both Scandinavia and Europe, almost like a spreading cancer—with surprisingly little resistance from the boards of directors of the enterprises he was targeting.

All he had to do was show them money. Lots of it. Principle, even nationality, as well as the welfare of the employees and communities that counted on those companies . . . none of it seemed to matter in the face of the almighty Krone, Euro, Pound or Dollar.

"Oleg wants to speak with you," Spring now says next to me, jerking me back to the present.

"Mmghee?" I slur, but with my eyes widened in further surprise.

"Lance," my mate echoes, "you're needed back on the job. Now. You're the one who needs to counter your son among the Barony. They'll listen to you, far more than they will to me."

"Aighh cghann't sspeaghk lighke thhiss," I object, looking down.

"You must be Guardian for us once more," my dragon son also urges. "Our tribe, our people need you, as much as we did thirty years ago. Only you can counter money and allure my half-brother tempts Outside Berkers with.

"That why I support you now," he adds with quiet pride. "It most important thing I can be doing today."

"It is," Substance agrees, reopening the cabin door, obviously never having taken her flight.

I close my eyes, summoning a strength to me by force of will alone, even though my mind cannot feel it the way I'm used to.

I cannot let my family or people down . . . any of them.

— — — — —

"Chief on the bridge," I hear as both Substance and Roana support my shoulders, helping me enter that space barely on my feet. Even though ace bandaging is still wrapped around my head and partway down the back of my neck, covering my closed surgical incision, I am once again in full village clothing, even wearing a flying jacket and my strap and badge of office. Spring is at my back, the tip of his snout pressing firmly against me just above my hips as my legs and feet take halting steps.

We stop at my mental command and a visible nod of my head as every crew member on the bridge turns toward me.

"Evvryghonne . . ." I begin to say. I then silently break down though, dropping my head, grimacing at the hideous speech my mouth is making.

"It's alright," Tyrah assures, stepping in front of me in her customary khaki uniform and black sweater with gold-striped epaulettes. "You're still our chief . . . and we need you."

As I look around beyond her, I can see uncertainty in the eyes of the other crew members, even fear. Rumours have obviously already been flying in the wake of the baroness' death, even reaching the Drekar an ocean away.

As Roana, Substance and Spring continue supporting my sides and even back, I raise my arms to draw Tyrah into an embrace, a tight embrace. I quietly weep now, knowing what everyone expects of me, even needs me to do for them . . . for all of us.

"Rrghadio, phlease . . ." I now direct though, recomposing myself as even Tyrah helps to turn and orient me towards the alcove abaft the bridge where the radio console is. _Substance,_ I then mentally order, _be ready to speak my thoughts without interruption if I need it. No debate this time._

"Yes, Chief," she replies, following closely behind me.

Carefully, I am helped to sit down upon a chair at the radio panel as the radioman on duty makes way for me.

"Minn herr," he radios, looking at the small camera above a video monitor as he switches that monitor on, "her er sjef." The radioman then takes off his headset, putting it on my bandaged head, even positioning its small microphone in front of my mouth. I glance uncertainly between Roana and Substance on either side of me, wishing one of them would take the headset. But it won't fit on Substance, and Roana has already likely spoken with whom I'm being connected with.

"Chief!" Oleg's videoed image now smiles at me as the screen comes to life.

"Aighh'vve hghad a stroghke," I warn as best I can, trying to sit more upright in the chair.

"I know, sir," Oleg swiftly responds. "We all do. But you do not know how strong you still are among us—how much weight whatever you say will still carry with our people."

"Sitchuasshion," I direct, asking him to get to the point, and skip past all the personal encouragement for the moment.

"Your son, Ronald, sir," Oleg now carefully says, "he is openly contesting the baroness' will and designated successor, legally in Norwegian courts, claiming to be fighting on behalf of the tribe to give them the opportunity to choose a successor through open nomination at the upcoming tribal ting or assembly. At the same time, he is also making an unexpected buyout offer . . . for all of Gerhard Industries. He appears to be leveraging much of his bid, but he's offering one and a half times the corporation's value. He's even promising a bonus dividend—a sizeable one—to every tribal citizen, once he acquires control.

"He has gone on television," my Outside Guardian continues, "both through interviews, and paid air time—carefully doing so even prior to the baroness' death. He has been expertly capitalizing on his Ýsa lineage, saying he is your true heir, and that our Berk nation needs strong leadership that has fought battles in the arena of international commerce. He is also claiming that both the Barony and Gerhard Industries have been managed inefficiently, stating that assets have been hoarded by tribal leadership, rather than shared broadly with all the citizens they're supposed to benefit.

"He has allies and admirers, even within the administration," Oleg now notes more quietly, his eyes briefly darting off to the sides. "I am quietly rallying support for your side as well, sir. But it's already the most divided I've ever seen us. We should have done more, prepared more, while the baroness was alive.

"I take partial blame, sir," he offers. "You can fire me, if you want."

"Nough," I reply, clearly shaking my head as I look at the camera and screen. "Aighh nneed yough."

"Know then that Ronald is taking off by air tonight . . . to meet with you," my Guardian continues. "He intends to rendezvous with the Drekar by helicopter when you call at Prudhoe Bay, the day after tomorrow. He will likely—"

"Claighm hhe hass mghy blessingh," I interrupt, "whether Aighh ghivve iht ohr nought, ihntenghding to cahpitalize ohn mhy cuhrrent cohndition. Aighh knough mhy sohnn.

"Havve broadcahst capabighlities stanndingh bhy forr mghe iff neehded, fromm herre," I then direct with a slight struggle, both to Oleg and even to Spring and the radioman around me. "Staygh ihn Ohslo, Ohlegg. Aighh wihll issue a letter ovv oppositiohn to ahny sahle ovv Gerhard Ihnduhstries by Bahrony. Azz chief in fahct, Aighh forbhid iht. Ahnyohne wgho disahgrees cahn tahke iht to courht."

"Yes, sir," Oleg now smiles. "I hope you don't mind, but I've been recording our conversation here, and will be selectively releasing it to encourage, even embolden our allies across the Barony."

"Aighh'mm nnot surhprised," I subtly smile.

"You don't mind?" he double-checked.

"Assuhre everyghone this chief ihs nought ghonne, juhst strohked," I reply. "Aighh whill fight forr ourr peohple. Aighh sweahr."

I am now practically mobbed with hugs and nudges on all sides by the rest of my family.

Even though my mouth doesn't work very well, I can only know of rather than feel my link with the dragons in my life, and my left side is still weak . . . I'm me again.

I'm me.

— — — — —

It's later and I'm back in our family's quarters now, typing this all out on my laptop before there's any chance of my forgetting it. I don't feel any holes in my memory, but I don't entirely trust it at the moment. If all else fails, I want this journal to be an official record and expression of my wishes if I should be further incapacitated.

I have a new pillow though as I relax, semi-reclining, typing this . . . Roana herself, who is relaxing against Rökkr this time. We humans are just warmly wrapped in quilts, nothing else. Roana is still hugging me, occasionally rubbing my shoulders, upper body, even my bandaged head . . . just carefully. She hasn't let go of me though since I talked with Oleg in the radio alcove.

She's even kissing my ear again as she reads this over my shoulder.

"Ahll Aighh dihd whas tallk," I remind her as we both look at this screen.

She just joyously rocks us both side to side, hugging me tightly. "You have never looked, or sounded, more determined," she assures. "As weak as you may have thought you were, you have never been stronger."

"Aighh see Rhonahld ihn two dayghs though," I sigh, just relaxing and savouring my wife's embrace of me. "Aighh dohn't knough howw Aighh cahn stop hhim iff hhe remaihns deterrmined. Hhe cahn ouhtmahnoeuvre mhe ohn the Ouhtside, lehgahlly, evehn tahcticahlly."

"A way will be found," my mate quietly assures as she continues gently rocking me from behind. "A way will be found."


End file.
